- - .XTY Op A4. XT IsS ~ q! W 4RAW DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL ECONOMY FOR THE UNITED STATES COMMISSION TO THE PARIS EXPOSITION OF 1900 MONOGRAPHS ON AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS The Care of Destitute, Neglected, and Delinquent Children BY HOMER FOLKS Secretary of the New York State Charities Aid Association [This paper is one of an historical series, on American philanthropy which is being published by The Charities Review. It is reprinted by permission of the Review, which reserves all rights of publication.] HV rILII " -' Copyrighted 19oo by THE CHARITIES REVIEW J. B. LYON COMPANY PRINTERS AND BINDERS ALBANY, N. T. TABLE OF CONTENTS THE CARE OF DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN PAGE. I -The situation in I80I...................... 5 II- Public care of destitute children, I801-I875..... I III -Private charities for destitute children, I80I-I875, 30 IV- Removal of children from almshouses.......... 47 V - Public systems, other than almshouse care, I875 -1900.................................... 52 VI - Neglected children.......................... 96 VII - Private charities for destitute and neglected children, I875-I900........................... I03 VIII - Delinquent children......................... II IX - Present tendencies....................... I28 X - Bibliography............................ 133 3 THE CARE OF DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED, AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN. In arranging the papers of this series it has seemed best to limit the present one to the consideration of the care of children who have been removed from their earlier environment and from parental control, and the direction of whose lives and burden of whose support has been assumed by public authorities or private charity. Many activities often included under the term "child-saving" will, therefore, not be considered. Nothing will be said, for instance, of movements that are primarily educational, such as day schools, kindergartens and home libraries. Various agencies which help poor families to keep their children under their own care, such as day nurseries, will be considered in the paper on "the care and relief of needy families." Children's hospitals will be considered in the paper on "hospitals, dispensaries and nursing;" institutions for the training of mentally defective children, in that on "the insane, feeble-minded and epileptic; " while the paper on " preventive work" will touch child life at many points not mentioned above. I- THE SITUATION IN I80i. The opening of the nineteenth century found the English poor-law system well established in most of the sixteen States then comprising the Union. The poor, children and adults,V/ were cared for by the local administrative units, towns (i. e., 5 6 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS townships) or counties and cities. There was little or no oversight or control by the States, and, then as now, none by the! Federal authorities. Little distinction was made as between adults and children, both being cared for in one of five ways: I. By outdoor relief, given to families at their own homes. 2. By farming out to various families, usually to the lowest bidder. 3. By contracting with some individual, usually the lowest bidder, to care for all the poor of a given locality. 4. By supporting them in an almshouse directly under the control of public authorities. 5. By indenture. The farming-out and contract systems had comparatively little application so far as children were concerned. The indenture system, although especially applicable to children, was, it is curious to note, also used as a means of caring for adults. The statutes of several States provided, at the opening of the century, that idle or vagrant persons might be indentured to respectable citizens for a period of one year. OUTDOOR RELIEF. In tracing the early history of the public care of pauper children it will be necessary to follow for some time the systems of outdoor relief and almshouse care. Outdoor relief was undoubtedly the method by which the larger number of pauper children, as well as adults, were cared for at the opening of the century. It had already passed (in 1784 in New York) from the control of the church authorities to that of the over-. seers of the poor, who were strictly public officials. The reports upon public relief made at a little later date, by competent authorities in Boston and New York, indicate that outdoor relief exerted the same evil influences upon children DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 7 at the opening of the century as at its close in those localities in which it still prevails. INSTITUTIONAL CARE. Almshouses were first built by the large cities. Philadelphia, the largest city in the United States at the opening of the century (population, 70,287), was then occupying its second public almshouse, opened in 1767 and located on the area bounded by Tenth and Eleventh and Spruce and Pine streets. Both adults and children were cared for in this institution. New York, the second city in the Union (population, 60,489), had just abandoned (in 1796) its original almshouse, and had removed its paupers to a much larger building, located in the present City Hall park, and on the site of the present county courthouse. Here were numbers of children, together with the many other elements of almshouse population that in large cities have since been segregated into special classes. The almshouse, while under the immediate management of a super-. intendent, was largely controlled by the common council, which held its meetings at the almshouse once in three months and inspected the institution. On October 6, I800, a committee of the common council, appointed to frame a new set of rules for the management of the almshouse, reported as among the objects to be attained the following: The children of the house should be under the government of capable matrons. * * * They should be uniformed, housed and lodged in separate departments, according to their different sexes; they should be kept as much as possible from the other paupers, habituated to decency, cleanliness and order, and carefully instructed in reading, writing and arithmetic. The girls should also be taught to sew and knit. 8 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS When the children arrive at proper ages, great care should be taken to furnish them with suitable places, that they may be instructed in some useful trade or occupation.' The exact number of children in the New York city almshouse in 1801 is not available, but on August 14, 1809, they numbered 226- 125 boys and o101 girls. It is likely that the city also boarded a number of infants in families at this time. The rules established by the common council in 1800 provided that "' care shall be taken to provide healthy and proper nurses for such of the children as may require them; and where this can be done out of the house, it shall be preferred."' Somewhat later, on April I, 1823, we learn that there were 129 infants placed out " at nurse," and paid for by the city at the rate of $i per week. Baltimore, the third city in the Union (population, 26,614), probably cared for its destitute children in the Baltimore county almshouse, the city having no charitable institution under its immediate direction at that time. Boston, the fourth city (population, 24,027), erected its second almshouse, for both children and adults, in 1800. Outdoor relief was also given freely, as was the case quite generally throughout New England. The proportion of " unsettled," or State, paupers was increasing, but they were cared for by the cities and towns, which were reimbursed by the State. There were no other cities in the United States having a population above ten thousand. In most of Pennsylvania, and generally in the Southern States, the county system of poor I relief prevailed, and many counties erected almshouses. In Maryland, the county almshouse system was established by law in 1768. In Delaware, each county had an almshouse by 1823. So far as known, the only public institution for children, not forming part of an almshouse, existing in 1801, was the CharlesI 1 Minutes of the common council, i800oo. Manuscript in city library at city hall. DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 9 ton, S. C., orphan house. The charter of Charleston, granted at the close of the Revolutionary War, imposed upon the city the duty of providing for poor orphans. For some years the children were boarded in families, but in 1790 a resolution was adopted by the city council in favor of the establishment of an orphan house. At first a building was hired for this purpose, but a new structure erected by the city was opened October 18, 1794, to receive the 115 orphans who were city charges. The records of the institution tell of an appreciative visit to the institution by President Washington. INDENTURE. The plan of indenturing or apprenticing destitute children, also taken from the English poor law, was in very general use at the opening of the century. It had been carefully regulated by law in Massachusetts in I703, in New York in I754, in Pennsylvania in I771, and in Maryland in 1797, and doubtless found legal recognition in still earlier statutes in these and other States. The rules established by the common council for the government of the New York almshouse in I80o provided that "When any of the children arrive at proper ages they shall be bound out to suitable trades or occupations, and provision shall be made in their indenture for their due maintenance and instruction. If any of those who shall have been so bound out, shall be injured or ill treated, the superintendent shall consider it as his duty to procure them redress. They are to be considered in every respect as the children of the public, under his care."1 In Virginia, overseers of the poor were required by law to make monthly reports, to the county courts, of the poor orphans and other children bound out. PRIVATE CHARITIES. The previous century had seen the beginnings of a remarkable development of private charities for the care of children. 1 Ibid. IO AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS The first orphan asylum in the country was that attached to the Ursuline convent in New Orleans. This convent was established by ten nuns in 1727, under the auspices of Louis XV of France. It maintained a day school and a hospital and also received, during the first year, an orphan- rescued by a missionary from a dissolute family. The frightful massacre by the Natchez Indians in I729 left many orphans in and near New Orleans, and the convent established an asylum for their care. In 1824, the convent was removed to a country site, and owing to the growth of other asylums, provision was made for the care of but 30 orphans, which number the convent still maintains. The Bethesda orphan house was established in Savannah in 1738, five years after the colony was settled, by the celebrated preacher, George Whitefield, to whom, he states, the plan was suggested by Reverend Charles Wesley and Governor Oglethorpe. This was founded by funds collected by Whitefield in England. In 1797, the society for the relief of poor widows with small children was organized in New York city. This society did not establish an institution, but visited and gave relief to the widows and children in their homes. In 1798, an association was organized by a Roman Catholic priest in Philadelphia to care for the orphans of Catholics who died of yellow fever during that year. Subsequently this institution became St. Joseph's female orphan asylum. In I799, an asylum for the care and edu. ton of destitute girls was established by St. Paul's church in L iltimore, and in I8oo the Boston female asylum for indigent orphan girls was incorporated. SUMMARY. As to destitute children, the situation at the opening of the century may, therefore, be summed up in the statement that children who were public charges were, as a rule, cared for with adult paupers by the contract system, or in almshouses, or by outdoor relief, or were bound out as apprentices; that ^) DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN I I Charleston had a municipal orphan asylum; and that private institutions for children had been established in New Orleans, Savannah, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Boston. As to neglected children, we find in the statutes of the time but few provisions for their rescue and care. As early as I735, in Boston, children whose parents were unable or neglected to provide for their support and education, might be bound out by the overseers of the poor. The laws of Maryland authorized, in I797, the binding out of the children of beggars. The class of children who are now forcibly removed from the X' control of unfit parents apparently remained with their families, as a rule, until the latter became destitute, when the children were cared for as pauper children, or until the fruits of neglect were reaped, and the children, convicted of offences, were sent to jails and penitentiaries along with older offenders. In the Penitentiary of New York city, on April I, i823, we are inqormed, there were thirty-two boys. II-PUBLIC CARE OF CHILDREN, I801-I875. Agencies for the care of destitute children have sprung from two sources - from public bodies acting in behalf of the whole community, and from private benevolence exercised through individual or associated effort. The term public, as used throughout this paper in connection with institutions or agencies for the care of children, indicates such as are under the direct control of governmental bodies and are supported from public funds. The term private indicates all other agencies, whether managed by individuals or by societies, churches or corporations. The public care of children during the first three-quarters of the century follows, in the main, the changes in the care of adult paupers, though in the larger cities provision was made for children separate from that for adults, but under the same administrative control. The movement as a whole was toward 12 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS an increased use of almshouses and a relative diminution of outdoor relief. The farming-out and contract systems passed largely into disuse, and in some States were forbidden by law. As it is undoubtedly fairly indicative of the manner in which most municipal institutions for children have been conducted, the history of the care of children by the city of New York will be considered at some length. That of other important municipalities will follow more briefly. PUBLIC CARE IN NEW YORK. The common council of this city, whose minutes during the first three-quarters of the century afford many illustrations of aldermanic wisdom as applied to child-saving, appointed January 7, I805, a committee to consider and report upon the expediency of granting the application of the commissioners of the almshouse for the establishment at the almshouse of a school for the pauper children. Whether the school was established or not we do not know. In I816 the children were remove4 along with the almshouse paupers, the hospital, and the prison department, to the new Bellevue establishment at Twenty-sixth street and East river- the main building of which is still used as Bellevue hospital. On April I, 1823, there were 553 children in the Bellevue almshouse, and the number of children in families aided by public outdoor relief was estimated at 4,ooo. Here, at least, a school was provided, for a writer in 1826, describing the almshouse establishment, says: One of the public or free schools (No. 6), conducted upon the monitorial system and containing 300 scholars, is in appropriate rooms for males and females. The school is well conducted, and the teachers are under the direction of the public school committee of the city. The children are orderly, clean, decently clothed and in good health," —an optimistic report, not altogether sustained by later developments. The writer continues: "There are two brick buildings, one at each end of the factory, 75 x 25 feet, containing six rooms each, which were for1 "The picture of New York," 1826, Astor library. DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 13 merly occupied as hospitals, one for men and one for women, who have been removed to the new hospital, and these rooms are now used for children and their nurses." The almshouse census in 1828 showed that the number of juvenile inmates had increased during the preceding five years from 553 to 667. A severe outbreak of ophthalmia in 1831 proved to be the beginning of the end of the use of the Bellevue establishment as a home for pauper children. On May 23, 183I, the board of assistant aldermen directed the committee on charity and the almshouse to report at the next meeting the present condition of the almshouse children afflicted with ophthalmia, and the cause. A month later the common council authorized the committee to employ a physician to assist the resident physician in the treatment of these children. He was to receive $3 for each day that he visited them. Just at this time the city purchased Blackwell's island and also three farms in Queens county, located on the East river bpposite Blackwell's island and known as the Long Island farms. A portion of the children having ophthalmia were removed from Bellevue to Blackwell's island. In July, the commissioners of the almshouse were authorized to remove the convalescent children from here to the Long Island farms, and to transfer from the almshouse to Blackwell's island the residue of the children afflicted with ophthalmia. On July 22, i83I, a committee of the board of assistant aldermen reported that they had visited the children on the island, and found that " their general health was manifestly changed from a sickly hue to a robust appearance."1 A little later, on December 5, I83I, we find the following resolution adopted by the assistant aldermen: "Whereas, several of the children at the Alms House having been afflicted by the disease termed Ophthalma, therefore, Resolved, that it be referred to the Committee of the Alms House to ascertain and report to this Board whether they can be taught any and 1 Proceedings of board of assistant aldermen, I831. I4 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS what useful employments that may render them less burthensome to themselves, and what will be the probable expense."' In June, 1832, the common council received a communication from the almshouse commissioners, recommending that the children in that establishment be transferred to the Long Island farms, stating that it would be necessary to erect temporary buildings at each of the three farms, and stating also that I20 of the almshouse children had ophthalmia. This recommendation was acted upon, for one of the commissioners, in a letter of resignation dated July I, 1833, stated that most of the children had been transferred from Bellevue to the Long Island farms, which were originally intended " for the special benefit of this unoffending, interesting and numerous class of paupers." The commissioner goes on to state that "soon after the purchase of the farms, in 1831, a man was placed upon them, ostensibly to cut wood in winter, his large family to be supported, and he to have $2 per day besides."2 The commissioner complains that, although the man is not qualified to superintend either the farms or the children, he still remains in charge of both. As a consequence, he says, " 118 boys dined last Saturday upon dry, hard, boiled salt beef, with dry bread, but no vegetables." He closes: "I would anxiously but respectfully recommend to your honorable bodies that you do consider the case of these poor children." From this time on, all of the children, except perhaps those needing hospital care, and the infants who were boarded out, were kept at the Long Island farms. On September I, 1834, they numbered 680, and I30 were at nurse in the city. The numbers increased, for the commissioners at this time announced the policy of " readily receiving all children who belong to the city and are destitute, and, when once within the establishment, keeping them under all usual circumstances until they are taught to read and write."3 They adopted a rule that girls 1 Proceedings of board of assistant aldermen, 1831. 2 Documents of common council, I833. a Documents of common council, 1834. DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 15 should not be bound out under the age of ten years, nor boys under the age of twelve, stating that during the previous year eighty children under those ages had been indentured. A question that is still troublesome to all institutions caring for children was thus stated in the report of the almshouse commissioners for i834: " The commissioners can bind the children out the day they enter the almshouse and the parents lose all control over them; A but if they remain in the almshouse unbound, the parents or guardians can probably demand them and take them out. NTow if they are once abandoned by their parents or friends to the public, and put in the almshouse school, it should be optional with the commissioners to deliver them back to the parents and friends or not. It will be readily perceived that there are many cases in which the taking of the children from school and delivering them back to intemperate parents, perhaps criminal ones, would be the certain destruction of the little education obtained and of the welfare and morals of the children'" The report goes on to state that the Long Island farms are, to a considerable extent, in an uncultivated state, but that they believe the citizens will not regret the purchase when they consider " that the previous abode of these children was within high walls, containing a state prison, county prison, a bridewell, and an almshouse establishment."' Almost immediately, however, an agitation was begun for the sale of the Long Island farms and the removal of the children to Randall's island, which was purchased by the city in i835. In the same year a committee of the board of aldermen reported in favor of moving both the children's institutions and the almshouse to Randall's island. Nothing was actually done for some years, although the subject was reported upon nearly every year. The message of the mayor, May, I840, states that there were 900 children in the schools on the Long Island farms, and that 349 children had been bound out during the preceding 1 Documents of common council, x834. AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS year. In 1843, plans were adopted by the almshouse commissioners for the removal of both the almshouse and the children's institutions to Blackwell's island. Buildings were to be erected just north of the present site of the almshouse, to accommodate I,ooo children. This plan was not carried into effect, and in I845 the Long Island farms had been sold, and a large building was erected on Randall's island for the pauper children. This, however, burned before the children were removed to it, and the question again arose as to where they should be located. It was finally decided to erect a series; of detached buildings on Randall's island. Early in 1847, however, the large building now occupied by the almshouse for women on Blackwell's island was completed, and the children were removed thither, "owing to the dilapidation of the old and wretched Long Island farms hovels."' Here they remained a year, during which time ten brick buildings were erected for them on Randall's island. The commissioner again stated it to be his intention to retain the children, before indenturing them, until they had received a better education. He thought girls should not leave the institution until they were thirteen years, and boys fifteen years of age. He also cony demned unsparingly the custom of detailing adult paupers, vagrants, and even criminals from the city institutions to care for the children. " Proper and efficient nurses should be hired, whose characters are a guarantee for the propriety of their actions." On April I5, 1848, the children were removed to the Randall's island institution, and the commissioner triumphantly reported, "We can certainly now, after having been incommoded with miserable and unsightly hovels for many years, boast with a becoming pride of possessing the most complete, convenient, and elegant establishment for the rearing of young orphans of the city's care known in the world;here true humanity can fulfill its ennobling mission."2 There 1 Documents of common council, 1847. 2 Report of commissioner of almshouse, 1848. DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 17 remained in the Randall's island institutions, December 31, 1848, a total of 1,054 children. There were also 165 children at nurse. During 1849, 514 children were cared for at nurse; of them, 50 were adopted, 97 were restored to friends, and 280 died. This was a cholera year, and, commenting on the death rate, the clerk of the outdoor poor department remarks that " The mortality among the children at nurse for the almshouse was awfully fatal and extensive."' Of the io09 children boarded out at the close of 1849, " about 36 " were reported as illegitimate children, mostly boarded with their mothers, 27 as foundlings, and 46 as the children of destitute parents. At this time the almshouse was under the control of one commissioner. Among other improvements, he employed an agent to visit the children at nurse, and also those indentured. The report for 1848 contains interesting statements concerning many of the children visited, thus,-" Bridget -, with Michael -, 349 Water St., about seven years; is now fourteen years old; a very industrious girl; reads, writes, and ciphers." " Mary -, with William -, on 27th St., for two and one-half years; is now fourteen years old; education neglected,- promised to attend to it." "James -, with -, 205 Christie St., for two years and one-half; is nine years old; a very good boy." In 1849, a board of governors succeeded the almshouse commissioner, and to some extent reversed his policy. They were in favor of placing children in families, and believed that legislation should be had enabling them to indenture children outside of the State. They stated that while they had been able to supply most of the demand for indenturing, no girls " capable of being put out remained," although there were still a number of boys of suitable age and size. From then on the history of the Randall's island nurseries is uneventful, until the legislation of 1875, which forbade the city to retain in its institutions healthy children over two years of age. The early reports of the State board of charities and of 1 Report of commissioner of almshouse, 1848. 2 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS or( the State charities aid association contain many unsparing criticisms of the pitiful condition of the children, cared for in part by female prisoners from the workhouse. The boarding out of infants continued until some date between I863 and 1866, when they were all returned to the almshouse. In I866 an infants' department of the almshouse was created, where, the report states, the " foundling infants, hitherto distributed among the wards of the almshouse, and consigned to the mercies of reluctant attendants, have been gathered under the care of a matron and kind and attentive nurses."' This was at first called the infants' bureau, and in 1867 the erection of a large new building for its use on Randall's island was begun. During the winter of 1867-68, owing to the overcrowding of the almshouse, the infants' hospital was removed to the newly erected building intended for an inebriate asylum, where it remained until August, I869, when it was removed to its present building on Randall's island. The death rate continued high, however, and the boarding out in Westchester county of the foundling and motherless babies was begun in 1871 or 1872. Boarding out was discontinued in I890, but was renewed on a small scale in I898, with the co-operation of two private charities. PHILADELPHIA. Philadelphia c6ntinued to occupy the almshouse located at '> Tenth and Pine streets until about I835. In I8Io, the average number of children supported in the institution was I7I, and during the same year 212 children were at nurse out of the house. The rules and regulations for the internal government of the almshouse, adopted December 21, 1821, contained elaborate provisions in regard to the children, and particularly in regard to the conduct of the school in the institution. Among other interesting provisions is the following: "The teacher shall use lenity and kindness to the boys under his care, and 1 Report of board of governors of almshouses, I866. DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 19 in no case inflict corporal punishment." It was also provided that "it shall be the duty of the teacher to attend with his scholars at divine service when in the house, and keep them as much as possible silent and in order, and place them by themselves." The report of a committee appointed at a town meeting of the citizens of the city and county of Philadelphia, July 23, I827, to consider the subject of the pauper system of the city and districts and to report remedies for its defects,1 throws much light on the condition of the children in the almshouse. Among the questions proposed by this committee to the managers of the almshouse was the following: "Are the children during their stay in the house separated from adults by day and night?" The answer was: "The greater number of the children in the house are separated from the adults at night, but the present buildings are too limited to allow of an arrangement so desirable and necessary during the day." Among the defects enumerated by the committee was the lack of authority in the board of guardians to bind out children who became public charges, without the consent of the parents. The report stated: ' The children of paupers are received into the asylum, nursed when necessary, fed and comfortably clothed at a very great expense to the public; as soon as they arrive at a suitable age to be bound out and proper places are provided for them, they are frequently withdrawn by their parents and return to the haunts of poverty and vice from which they had been taken, and thus the benevolent purposes of the institution are defeated and the public funds uselessly expended." The committee recommended that the buildings occupied as an almshouse and children's asylum be sold and new buildings erected; that " the children's asylum be so constructed as to guard against the diseases to whi h the inmates of the present establishment are subject," and hat the board of guardians be given power to bind out children who become public charges without the con1 Philadelphia, 1827. 20 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS sent of parents, unless the expenses incurred for their support be defrayed and a security be given that they will not again become chargeable for two years. It appears from the tables accompanying the report of the committee that, on May 22, I826, there were 145 children in the children's asylum, and that during the preceding year, 182 were bound out, 51 died, 45 were discharged, 29 eloped, and 522 were returned to parents and relatives. From the question and answer quoted above it is evident that the children's asylum was at this time located either in the almshouse building, or so near that the children and the adults were not kept apart by day. We are informed, however, that at some date prior to I835 the children's asylum was located on Fifth, between Pine and Federal streets.1 This would be some five blocks distant from the main almshouse. It is possible, though not probable, that the children's asylum referred to in the report of the committee of 1827 was not in nor adjacent to the almshouse, but was already located in the building at Fifth and Pine streets. Force is given to this suggestion by the statement in the report of the committee of 1827 that " the average number of children in the house from April, 1820, to May, 1826, was 154," and that "the expenses of the institution from its commencement to May, 1826, exclusive of cost of house and lot and new additional buildings, amounted to $44,508.4I." The evidence is not conclusive as to whether the children's asylum, as an institution separate from the almshouse and located some blocks distant, was established in I820 or even at some earlier date, or as late as I828. We do know, however, that in 1835 the children's asylum and the almshouse were sold, and both children and adults were removed to the new buildings located in the town of Blockley (now part of Philadelphia), and known henceforth as the Blockley almshouse. The children were placed in the east end of the northwestern range of buildings. 1 History and reminiscences of the Philadelphia almshouse and hospital. Philadelphia, I890, pp. 128-29. DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 21 From Dr. Alfred Stille's reminiscences of the Philadelphia hospital we learn something of the condition of the children in this institution. Dr. Still was a resident physician of the institution in its earliest days, and had special charge of the children's asylum. He says: "A hundred or more children were sheltered there on their way to the early grave to which most of them were destined. Illegitimate and other outcasts formed the majority, and/ I soon became convinced of the causes that produced the crippling and mortality of these outcasts and waifs. I pointed out to the committee of the board how the disease was disseminated by the children washing in the same basins and using the same towels, and, it was maintained, by their having no shady places for exercise in the open air, and also by the insufficient food permitted them) * * * But, of course, the committee of the children's asylum and the guardians knew better than I, and, at the time at least, nothing was done to correct this wrong."' So far as we can ascertain, the destitute children supported by the city of Philadelphia remained in Blockley almshouse until the passage of the children's law of 1883. BOSTON. The city of Boston, which had built an almshouse in I800, soon found it outgrown, and in 1822 a new structure was completed in South Boston, known as the house of industry. This institution (both almshouse and prison, and receiving both children and adults) was placed under the charge of a body called the board of directors of the house of industry. Controversy arising between this body and the overseers of the poor, the functions of the overseers were by statute limited to the distribution of outdoor relief, and of certain trust funds. The custody of the pauper children of the almshouse was vested henceforth in the directors of the house of industry. Although 1 Ibid., p. 58. 22 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS the city established a reform school for juvenile offenders in I826 (located, unfortunately, in a portion of the buildings of the house of correction for adult offenders), no separate provision for pauper children was made until much later. The need of removing the children from adult paupers was, however, realized by the directors of the house of industry, for in i833 their annual report states that " In closing these remarks the directors would respectfully urge the.necessity of removing the children from the adult paupers. Experience has shown that children brought up and indentured from almshouses often feel toward it a filial regard, and having been accustomed to see grown persons supported there for no other reason than that they are addicted to idleness and intemperance, again resort to it themselves rather than encounter the common difficulties of life."- The report for I834 speaks of ten children at the almshouuse likely to remain permanent paupers (on account of idiocy, etc.), and I22 who will probably be indentured as they arrive at a suitable age, or be discharged to parents and friends, should they become able to assume their support. In the same year, I834, the city council established at the house of industry a building known as the " children's asylum." The overseers of the poor appropriated the income from one of the principal trust funds under their care, the Boylston education fund, to the support of certain children in this institution, which henceforth was known as the Boylston school, or Boylston asylum, though remaining a part of the house of industry. -EM In I837 the house of reformation (juvenile reformatory) was transferred to a building erected, against the protest of the managers, near the house of correction and house of industry. It was at this time under a control separate from that of any other institution, but in 184I the city council made it a part of the house of industry, placing it under the control of the board of directors of the latter institution. The destitute boys who had been in the Boylston school or asylum were trans DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 23 ferred to a wing of the house of reformation building, and placed under the officers of the latter institution, though they were kept "quite separate." Provision was thus made for a portion of the pauper children somewhat apart from the adult paupers and criminals, but in the same building with juvenile offenders. In 1849, a large building was erected on Deer island, and thither were removed the inmates of the house of industry adult prisoners, adult paupers, and juvenile paupers, except the boys over six years of age who remained in one wing of the house of reformation for juvenile offenders in South Boston. This institution also was removed to Deer island in 1858. Presumably the pauper children were in separate buildings on Deer island, for the report of 1853 speaks of two schools on Deer island, in one of which were 70 girls and small boys, and in the other I 6 older boys. There were also 131 boys in the Boylston school, or juvenile pauper wing of the house of reformation building, making a total of 317 indoor juvenile paupers. The next year, I854, 2I4 children were reported at Deer island, and 59 " at nurse." No further radical changes occurred until after I875. At the close of the first three-quarters of a century, therefore, Boston provided for its destitute and neglected children in buildings on Deer island which were under the control of the almshouse authorities, and practically formed a part of that institution. CHARLESTON. The history of the Charleston orphan house, a strictly municipal institution, from 1790 to the present, has been in every way creditable to that city. The institution still stands on the site of the original building erected in I794. It has received a number of bequests and donations from private citizens, so that about half of its present income is derived from this source, and half from the city treasury. The first kindergarten in 24 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS Charleston was established at the orphan house in I877. The government of the institution is vested in ten commissioners appointed by the city council. Notwithstanding the success of the Charleston orphan house, few persons, if any, will dissent from the statement that the direct care of destitute children by American municipalities prior to i875 was, as a rule, a pitiful failure. STATE CHARGES OF MASSACHUSETTS In the meantime, the State of Massachusetts, which, since about I793, had reimbursed the various towns and cities for the care of the " unsettled poor," had made its own provision for this class by establishing, in I85I-52, three State almshouses, at Tewksbury, Bridgewater, and Monson. At each of these, children, as well as adults, were received. In I855, an act was passed requiring the removal of all children from Bridgewater and Tewksbury to Monson, but through the influence of the superintendents of the three institutions it was repealed the next year. By I858 the population of these three institutions exceeded 2,500, of whom more than half were children. This population was described by the board of State charities as "a motley collection of broken-backed, lamelegged, sore-eyed, helpless, and infirm human beings, with scarcely an adult that is able in body and mind." We are informed that the children were packed like sardines in double cradles; were cared for by pauper inmates, and were indentured to people whose credentials could hardly have received a proper investigation at the hands of the overworked house officials. In i863, the board of State charities was established, and was authorized to transfer inmates of any State almshouse to any other State almshouse. One of its first acts, in i864, was to transfer the children frctn Bridgewater and Tewksbury to Monson. Subsequently, in i866, the Monson institution was declared to be the State primary school, and thereafter the i children were not to be designated as paupers. This was the DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 25 first State institution for destitute children in the United States. In 1872, the almshouse department at Monson was abolished, though many adult paupers remained in the State primary school as helpers. The board of State charities engaged an agent to visit the children who had been indentured from the State almshouses and the State reform schools. This led to the establishment, in I869, of a State visiting agency, to visit all children placed out from State institutions, and to visit and report upon the homes of applicants for children. The visiting agency was independent of any other State body, its executive officer being appointed by the governor, but it reported to the board of State charities. It was also the duty of the visiting agent to attend trials of juvenile offenders, and, having investigated the circumstances, to advise the magistrates whether the children should be committed to a reform school, or to the custody of the board of State charities, by it to be placed in their own, or some other families, or temporarily in the State primary school at Monson, later on to be placed in a family, or, if they proved unmanageable, transferred to a reform school. Thus early were the essential features of flexibility and transfer from one institution to another, or to a family, according to the developments of the individual child, secured. By 1875, Massachusetts, so far as its State charges were concerned, had separated its juvenile from its adult paupers, and had established an adequate system of supervision of indentured children. Meanwhile, almshouses had been established by many smaller cities, and in some States by counties or towns. Perhaps the most complete statement of the methods of public care of the poor in the earlier part of the century is contained in the report of an investigation, made by the then secretary of the State of New York, Hon. J. V. N. Yates, in I823.1 This report includes not only a statement of the condition of the poor in each county and town in New York, but also a detailed report from nearly every other State in the Union. 1 Assembly journal, 1824, pp. 386-400. Appendix published separately in assembly documents. Reprinted by State Board of Charities, I9oo. 26 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS The report from Brooklyn showed that there were thirteen boys and seven girls in the almshouse, and also thirteen men and twenty-one women. The training received by the children is perhaps suggested by the report of the Brooklyn official: " It is indispensable that the children should be educated, but in some almshouses (as it is in ours at present) there may be none able to teach the children; and, on account of disorders incident to public places, it would be improper to send them to the public district school; the children must remain uneducated or some provision must be made to hire a teacher. Would it not be right to give the almshouse a particular demand on the school fund? " In Albany, of 126 paupers in the almshouse in 1823, forty-six were children under the age of seven years. The general conclusion reached by Mr. Yates was that outdoor relief was harmful, and that the building of county almshouses would solve most of the difficulties connected with public relief. The report stated that "The education and morals of the children of paupers (except in almshouses) are almost wholly neglected. They grow up in filth, idleness, and disease, and many become early candidates for the prison or the grave. The evidence on this head is too voluminous for reference" (page 393). Again, in summing up the situation, the report states: "Most of the children of paupers out of an almshouse are not only brought up in ignorance and idleness, but their health is precarious, and they frequently die prematurely. The reverse is the case in an almshouse. Their health and morals are alike improved and secured, and besides they receive an education to fit them for future usefulness " (page 81). It was recommended that in every county there should be established one or more houses of employment, in which paupers were to be maintained and employed, and their children to be carefully instructed, and at suitable ages to be put out to some useful business or trade (page 395). DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 27 The report received favorable consideration, and led to the passage of the law of i824, which established the county almshouse system in New York. The rapidly developing central and western States generally adopted systems of poor relief similar to those of New York and Pennsylvania, though the contract and farming-out plans seem to have found small place in those States. The town overseers generally were authorized to give temporary outdoor relief, but permanent outdoor relief, if given, and the almshouses, were administered by the county authorities. It gradually became evident to thoughtful observers that the high hopes of Secretary Yates, expressed in his otherwise admirable report of I824, that in almshouses the children of paupers would be trained and taught to be useful, and thus become desirable members of society, were not to be fulfilled. Miss Dorothea Dix, in her report of her visitation of the almshouses of New York in i844, said: "They do not guard against the indiscriminate association of the children with the adult poor. The education of these children, with rare exceptions, is conducted on a very defective plan. The almshouse schools, so far as I have learned from frequent inquiries, are not inspected by official persons, who visit and examine the other schools of the county." In I856, a select committee appointed by the New York senate made a careful report on the public charities of that State. The condition of the almshouses generally was unsparingly condemned, and especially their harmful effects upon the children. " The committee are forced to say that it is a great public reproach that they (the children) should be permitted to remain in the poorhouses. As they are now mismanaged, they are for the young the worst possible nurseries." From this time on, the conviction slowly spread that poorhouses were not good places for children to grow up in. In the fullness of time, almost twenty years after the above report was submitted by the senate committee, legislation began to be secured prohibiting the retention of children in almshouses. 28 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS INDENTURE. The indenture system was a very important part of the provision for destitute children during the first three-quarters of the century. The statutes of many States contained elaborate provision with regard to the indenturing of children. Some of these are interesting. The Massachusetts act of I793 directed that in indentures " Provision shall be made for instructing the male children to read, write and cipher," and " For such other instruction, benefit, and allowance either within or at the end of the term, as to the overseers may seem fit and reasonable "a degree of flexibility and adaptiveness to individual cases that has sometimes been lacking in more modern legislation. In Maryland in I793 an act was passed " For the better regulation of apprentices," indicating that there had been earlier legislation upon the subject. The preamble recited: " Whereas, it has been found by experience that poor children, orphans, and illegitimate, for want of some efficient system have been left destitute of support and have become useless or depraved members of society; and, Whereas it would greatly conduce to the good of the public in general and of such children in particular that necessary instruction in trades and useful arts should be afforded them; Therefore, etc." The justices of the orphans' courts were authorized to bind out orphans, "and such children as are suffering through the extreme indigence or poverty of their parents, also, the children of beggars, and also illegitimate children, and the children of persons out of this State where a sufficient sustenance is not afforded." Trustees of the poor in the various counties were authorized to bind out children under their care in the poorhouses, preference being given to tradesmen and mechanics. In I826, the act was amended so as to authorize the binding out of children who were found begging upon the streets of the city of Baltimore. The indenture system was authorized by law in the territory of Indiana in I8o7^ The DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 29 annual message of the mayor of the city of New York for the year 1840 states that 349 children had been bound out during the preceding year. The old-fashioned indenture or apprentice system passed largely into disuse, if not into disrepute, by 1875. It is clearly Y not in harmony with the spirit of these later times to "bind" any one to serve another person for a definite term of years. The bound child is often alluded to as typifying loneliness, nneglect, overwork, and a consciousness of being held in low esteem. It is probable, however, that as the apprentice system as a whole passed away with the profound changes that occurred in industrial conditions, the indenturing of children also under- -- went a change. The value of the instruction received from the " masters " became less and the value of the services rendered by the children increased. In its worst forms, and especially in some localities, certain features of the indenture system, particularly the recapture of apprentices who ran away, painfully remind one of human slavery. In fact, it has been seriously suggested that by the adoption of the constitutional amendment in 1865, forbidding "involuntary servitude," the t" indenture system became unconstitutional. In the early part of the century, however, when learning a trade was a matter of the highest importance, the system was undoubtedly something quite different from what it became in later years. Though there were doubtless many cases of hardship from exacting or cruel masters, it is likely that the indentured chil- l dren, as a whole, were more fortunate than those maintained by public outdoor relief or in almshouses. Miss Mary E. Wilkins, in a collection of stories for children, tells a pretty story of a bound girl who was afterwards adopted, and gives an authentic copy of an indenture paper executed in Boston in I753.1 1 "The Pot of Gold." Boston, I893. 30 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS III-PRIVATE CHARITIES FOR DESTITUTE CHIU DREN: I80I-I875. Though there has been throughout the century a steady growth in the number and importance of children's institutions founded from philanthropic motives and supported by the gifts of the generous, it seems best to divide their history into two chapters - i80i to 1875, and i875 to the close of the century. The establishment of public systems of child-saving work in various States, in the decade i870-1880, and the enactment of laws for the removal of children from almshouses, changed the conditions under which the private charities did their work, and in some States strongly affected their character and methods. The work of the private agencies for the care of destitute children, after i875, will therefore be taken up after we have considered the public systems adopted in various States, in place of caring for children in almshouses. Prior to the opening of the nineteenth century, agencies for the care of destitute children had been established by private benevolence in the cities of New Orleans, Savannah, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Boston. The orphan asy-, lum founded by Whitefield in Savannah in 1738 passed through many vicissitudes and gradually became an academy rather than an orphan home. It was Whitefield's wish to have it become a college, but his majesty, George II, declined to grant a college charter. The buildings were twice burned, and the academy was closed in I79I. The five other organizations founded prior to i80i have continued their work to the present. NEW YORK ORPHAN ASYLUM. The first charity for children organized in the United States V after i8oo was the New York orphan asylum society. During the early days of the society for the relief of widows with small children, organized in 1797, the question often arose as to how the children of deceased widows should be cared for, DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 31 the funds of the society not being available for their support. A copy of the life of Francke, with a history of his orphan house at Halle, fell into the hands of one of the managers of the society, and this led to the establishment of the orphan asylum society. The original constitution of the society, adopted in 1807, provided that admittance should be granted only to orphans, who should be educated, fed, and clothed at the expense of the society, and at the asylum. It was further provided that, " As soon as the age and acquirements of orphans shall, in the opinion of the board of direction, render them capable of earning their living they must be bound out to some reputable person or families for such object and in such manner as the board shall approve." In the absence of a public school system it was natural that the managers should feel that the admission of the children f' was necessary for their education, no less than for their maintenance. It would have been very difficult at that time to secure the education of children placed out in free homes or boarded in families. The early reports of the society all indi-! cate that the children were to be placed out as soon as they had received a fair education. The by-laws provided that h The boys shall be bound to farmers or mechanics, the girls to respectable families. A book shall be kept at the asylum in which applicants for children shall insert their names, occupations, and references for character, which shall be laid before the board. At the monthly meeting a committee shall be appointed to make the necessary inquiries." In the charter of the society, granted by the legislature in I807, its purposes were declared to be "protecting, relieving, and instructing orphan children." The third annual report states that the plan of the society is, "To bind out the girls as servants from the time they can read and write until they are eighteen; and the boys, when equally instructed, are to be put out as servants till the age of 32 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS fifteen, at which time they are to be returned to the trustees of the asylum, who will then bind them as apprentices to virtuous mechanics." Before the society was two years old, finding itself encumbered with debt, it applied to the State legislature for assistance from the public treasury, an unfortunate example that has been very generally followed by New York children's institutions from that day to this. The legislature responded by extending the grant of a lottery which they had previously made to the board of health, upon condition that $5,ooo of the proceeds should be paid to the orphan asylum society. The sum of $5,000 was received from the proceeds of this lottery in I8I5, but meanwhile, in i8ii, the legislature granted the society an annual contribution of $500, to be paid from the duties on auction sales, a sum which the society received each year until i853. The early reports of the society indicate that a considerable number of their children were received directly from the almshouse. The society often stated with pride that no orphan child had ever been refused admission to the institution. The twelfth report states that in the month of February eleven orphan children were received from the New York almshouse, and adds that "The honorable, the corporation, have never been prevailed upon to extend even a small share of that patronage to this society which it might seem to claim from them, and for which they have been repeatedly solicited." An interesting glimpse of the life of the children in the asylum is afforded by the fourteenth annual report, which informs us that " The boys have been employed in reading, writing, arithmetic, and committing scripture to memory, thirty-four boys having learned from I50 to I,500 verses each, and one has committed the whole of the New Testament. For health and recreation they have, under the direction of the superintendent, cultivated the ground owned or rented by the society." DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 33 The sixteenth annual report, dated April, 1822, stated that since the commencement of the society there had been received 446 children, of whom 243 had been placed with respectable employers, a number were out on trial, 15 had died, and 152 remained in the asylum. BALTIMORE ORPHAN ASYLUM. A year after the New York orphan asylum was organized, a society in Baltimore, known as the female orphaline charity school, purchased a house and added to its educational work the care and maintenance of destitute children. It had been established in 1778 as the female humane associated charity school. Although the care of children was undertaken in addition to their education in I807, the name of the institution was not changed until 1827, when it became the Baltimore female orphan asylum, the name being again changed, in 1846, to the Baltimore orphan asylum. The act of incorporation of 1807 provided that, "For the orderly management of said school, there shall be annually appointed nine discreet female characters. * * *" The directors were also given power to bind out children placed in the school. BOSTON. In 1813, the Boston asylum for indigent boys was organized, for the purpose of " relieving, instructing, and employing indigent boys." In I835, the institution was consolidated with the Boston farm school society, which two years before had purchased Thompson's island, in Boston harbor, and opened an institution " for the education and reformation of boys who from loss of parents or other causes were exposed to extraordinary temptations." OTHER INSTITUTIONS. In 1814, the orphan society, of Philadelphia, apparently modeled somewhat after the New York and Baltimore societies, was organized "To protect, relieve, support, and instruct 3 34 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS orphan children." In the following year, under the leadership of the wife of President Madison, the Washington city orphan asylum was established at the national capital. This institution was dependent upon private generosity, its only aid from public sources being a grant of land valued at $Io,ooo in 1832. The protestant orphan asylum, of Natchez, Miss., was organized in I816. The following year, three institutions were established - the Poydras female orphan asylum, endowed by Julien Poydras, in New Orleans; St. Mary's female orphan asylum, of Baltimore, and the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum Society in New York city, the latter two being the first catholic institutions in these cities. LIST OF CHILDREN S CHARITIES. The writer has not found it possible to prepare a complete list of the private institutions for children established in the United States. Less than half of the States have State boards of charities, and even the reports of most of these boards give little information concerning private institutions. In several of the largest cities directories of charities are published by the charity organization societies. The report on crime, pauperism, and benevolence forming a part of the eleventh census gives in part ii, pages 894-936, a list of benevolent institutions in each State. They are not classified, however, orphan asylums, hospitals, homes for the aged, and other charities being grouped in one table. Nor is there any list of the institutioned discontinued prior to I890. From all of the sources indicated above, and by special correspondence, a table has been prepared, which is believed to be reasonably complete, showing the dates of the organization of private charities for children during the first half of the century. The writer would be grateful for any corrections to the list, which follows: 1727. Orphan asylum of Ursuline convent, New Orleans. 1738. Bethesda orphan house, Savannah. I797. Society for the relief of widows and small children, New York. I798. St. Joseph's female orphan asylum, R. C., Philadelphia. I799. St. Paul's orphanage, P. E., Baltimore. DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 35 800o. Boston (female) orphan asylum. I8o6. Orphan asylum society, New York. 1807. Orphan asylum, Baltimore. I8I3. Boston asylum for indigent boys. I814. Orphan asylum of Philadelphia. 1815. Washington city orphan asylum, Washington, D. C. 1816. Protestant orphan asylum, Natchez. I817. St. Mary's female orphan asylum, Baltimore. 1817. Roman catholic orphan asylum, New York. 1817. Poydras female orphan asylum, New Orleans. 1822. Association for the care of colored orphans, Philadelphia. 1824. Asylum for destitute orphan boys, New Orleans. 1826. Roman catholic orphan asylum, Brooklyn. 1828. Female orphan asylum, Portland, Me. 1829. St. John's orphan asylum, R. C., Philadelphia. I830. Orphan asylum, Utica. I831. St. Vincent's orphan asylum, R. C., Boston. 1831. Orphan asylum, Albany. 1831. St. Vincent's female orphan asylum, R. C., Washington, D. C. 1831. Leake and Watts orphan asylum, New York. 1832. Farm school society, Boston. I833. Orphan asylum, New Haven. I833. Orphan asylum, Cincinnati. I833. Orphan asylum society, Brooklyn. I833. Children's friend society, Boston. 1833. Infant school and children's home association (now the Hunt asylum for destitute children), Boston. 1834. St. John's female orphan asylum, R. C., Utica. 1835. Children's friend society, Providence. 1835. Society for half-orphan and destitute children, New York. 1835. Orphan asylum, Troy. I835. Nickerson home for children, Boston. 1836. Orphan asylum, Buffalo. 1836. Colored orphan asylum, New York. 1837. Foster home association, Philadelphia. 1837. St. Aloysius orphan asylum, R. C., Bond Hill, Ohio. 1838. Catholic male orphan asylum, Mobile. 1838. Shelter for colored children, Providence. 1838. Orphan asylum, Rochester. 1839. Protestant orphan asylum, Mobile. 1839. Children's home, Bangor, Me. 1840. St. Vincent de Paul male orphan asylum, R. C., Baltimore. 1840. Christ church asylum for female children, Baltimore. 1841. Southern home for destitute children, Philadelphia. 1843. New orphan asylum for colored youths, Avondale, Ohio. I844. Male orphan asylum, Richmond, Va. 1845. St. Mary's home, R. C., Savannah. 1845. St. Peter's asylum, P. E., Baltimore. 36 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS 1845. Onondaga county orphan asylum, Syracuse. 1845. St. Patrick's orphan asylum, R. C., Rochester. 1845. Protestant orphan asylum, Nashville. 1845. St. Vincent's orphan asylum, R. C., Albany. 1845. Manual labor school for indigent boys, Baltimore. 1846. Hudson orphan and relief association, Hudson, N. Y. 1846. Institution of mercy, R. C., New York. I846. Society for the relief of destitute children of seamen, New York. 1847. Temporary home for destitute (now the Gwynne temporary home for children), Boston. 1847. Orphan house, Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 1847. St. Mary's orphan asylum, R. C., Natchez. 1848. Protestant foster home, Newark. 1848. Orphan asylum, Newark. 1848. Jefferson county orphan asylum, Watertown, N. Y. 1848. St. Vincent's female orphan asylum, R. C., Buffalo. 1848. St. Patrick's orphan asylum, R. C., Baltimore. i848. Protestant home for orphan girls, Baton Rouge. 1848. Children's friend society, Worcester. 1849. Children's mission to children of the destitute, Boston. 1849. German protestant orphan asylum, Cincinnati. 1849. St. Joseph's male orphan asylum, R. C., Buffalo. 1849. Orphan asylum, Chicago, Ill. 1849. Kentucky female orphan asylum, Midway, Ky. i850. St. Vincent's asylum, R. C., San Rafael, Cal. i850. Five points house of industry, New York. The various periods may be grouped as follows: Founded prior to i80oi.............................................. 6 Founded i80oi to i8ii..................................................... 2 Founded i8ii to 1821.............................................. 7 Founded 1821 to 1831................................................ 6 Founded 1831 to 1841............................................... 26 Founded 1841 to i85I..................................................... 30 77 LATER EXPANSION. New York had already begun to show its tendency to multiply institutions, under the influence of aid from the public treasury. With one-seventh of the population of the country, the State included two-sevenths of the institutions founded prior to 1851. It is not possible to trace the establishment of new institutions after 1850 in detail. It may be stated that everywhere they increased in numbers and in diversity of char DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 37 acter and objects. Not including some central and western States, from which returns have not been received, forty-seven new institutions were organized in the fifties, seventy-nine in the sixties (notwithstanding the civil war), and twenty-one in the first half of the seventies. VARIOUS TYPES OF INSTITUTIONS. In the list of children's charities founded prior to I850, there are several different types of institutions. One type was that founded by a group of people who were not necessarily associated in any other organization, and whose activities in this direction seemed to be prompted solely by philanthropic impulses. Usually, however, it happened that these persons either were members of protestant churches or of none. Some form of religious observance, undenominational, but noncatholic, was usually provided for the children. In name, organization, and management the institution was not connected with any church organization. This type, well represented by the orphan asylum societies, would usually regard itself as nonsectarian, but by members of other than protestant churches it would be called sectarian and protestant. Another type was the orphan asylum organized as a distinctively religious institution, largely under the control of the church authorities, and usually under the immediate management of a religious order. Each form of organization has its peculiar merits and its disadvantages, but the reader who misses the difference between the two points of view above set forth will fail to understand some of the most powerful influences in the development of child-saving agencies in the United States. A third type of institution appeared later, the endowed orphan asylum, established usually by a bequest, and managed as a trust by a board of directors. Such were the Poydras female orphan asylum in New Orleans, the Leake and Watts orphan asylum in New York, Girard college in Philadelphia, 38 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS the McDonough school near Baltimore, and many others. Among these, Girard college is worthy of special mention. Stephen Girard died in 1831 leaving property then worth about $6,000,0ooo for the establishment of a college for orphans. Evidently he had both charitable and educational objects in mind, for in his will he specified that, " As many poor white male orphans between the ages of six and ten years as the said income shall be adequate to maintain shall be introduced into the college as soon as possible." The term male orphan has been construed to mean any fatherless boy whose mother has not remarried. It was Mr. Girard's wish that boys who proved worthy should be kept until at least fourteen years of age, but not after reaching the age of eighteen. Unruly boys were to be dismissed. Buildings costing nearly $3,000,000 were completed in 1847. The endowment has greatly increased in value, the present value of property of the institution being estimated at $24,000,000, and yielding an annual net income of nearly $I,ooo,ooo. The institution opened with Ioo boys on January I, I848, and the number steadily increased until on December 31, 1898, there were 1,934 pupils. The boys are taught all branches that are suitable for children of their ages. It is, of course, not a college in any true sense of the term, but is intended to fit boys for commercial and mechanical pursuits. The estate, which was left to the care of the mayor, aldermen, and citizens of Philadelphia, is administered by the board of city trusts, appointed by the supreme court of Pennsylvania and the city courts of Philadelphia. The grounds are surrounded by a high stone wall, and in many respects, notwithstanding the beauty of the buildings and grounds, the college has a decidedly institutional appearance. The class of boys received includes many who otherwise would probably be admitted to orphan asylums and such institutions, with a proportion of those whose parents are in rather better circumstances. DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 39 Its beneficence is not to be questioned: but when it is remembered that this institution has a larger endowment than any university in the land, it is to be questioned whether its founder did wisely in yoking together free education and free maintenance. As an educational agency, even if it were to give the same sort of education as at present, it certainly could reach a very much larger number who need such instruction if it were simply a series of day schools. On the other hand, solely as a charity, it could be much more effective if freed from the restrictions imposed by the will, in view of the educational features of the proposed college. (,n the whole, it is to be feared that 'the name of its founder must be added to the already long list of those who have erred in trying to foresee the social needs of the future, and in tying up vast estates to uses which soon fail to meet the most serious needs of the community> Girard college is the largest and most important endowed children's institution in the United States, and probably in the world, but the example of Stephen Girard is not one to be followed by wise philanthropists. SPECIAL CLASSES. Institutions for special classes of children also appeared. The Philadelphia association for the care of colored orphans was organized by the society of friends in I822, and was followed by similar institutions in Providence in I835, in New York in I836, in Avondale, near Cincinnati, in i843, a second in Philadelphia in I855, and one in Brooklyn in i866. Boston established no separate institutions for colored children, but it is likely that then, as now, both colored and white children were received in many of her asylums. The institutions for colored children appeared in those localities in which the influence of the quakers, or friends, was strong. About i845 a day school, established by the society of friends, for the children on the Cattaraugus Indian reservation near Buffalo, New York, was reorganized as an asylum for 40 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS orphan and destitute Indian children. For ten years it was supported by voluntary contributions, but from I855 it received subsidies from the State. When State subsidies were abolished in 1875, it was reorganized as a State institution, and is to-day the only State institution in New York for the care of destitute children. Another institution for a special class of inmates was the home for children of destitute seamen in the city and port of New York, established on Staten island in 1846. In founding children's institutions of a distinctly religious character, the catholics easily took the lead. Of the seventyseven institutions established prior to 1851, twenty-one were under catholic auspices. In the fifties, a number of new institutions were added to the list of those under the auspices of the protestant episcopal church — the orphans' home and asylum of the protestant episcopal church in New York city in I85I, the church charity foundation of Long Island in the same year, the charity foundation of the protestant episcopal church in the city of Buffalo in 1858, the church home for orphan and destitute children in Boston in 1855, the church home for children in Philadelphia in 1856. The lutherans established the lutheran orphan home in Philadelphia in 1859, the evangelical lutheran St. John orphan home in Buffalo in 1864, the Wartburg farm school in New York city in I866, and the Martin Luther orphan home in Boston in I87I. The first jewish institution for children was probably the jewish orphans' home in New Orleans, established in I856. This was followed by the jewish foster home in Philadelphia in the same year, the New York hebrew orphan asylum in I860, the orphans' guardians society in Philadelphia in 1863, the Pacific hebrew orphan asylum in San Francisco in I870, the hebrew orphan asylum in Baltimore in 1872, and others.1 I See article on "Jewish child-saving in the United States." Proceedings of the national conference of charities and correction, I897, p. o18. DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 41 In 1851 a new type of institution appeared in the New York juvenile asylum, organized through the efforts of the association for improving the condition of the poor, as the house of refuge had been organized a quarter of a century before, by the society for the prevention of pauperism. The juvenile asylum aimed to receive not simply destitute children, but also children who were neglected and in danger of moral ruin, and wayward children. It received children upon surrender by parents, and also upon commitment by the courts. It combined, in our opinion unfortunately, the functions of a home for destitute children, a training school for neglected children, and a juvenile reformatory. From the first it received substantial aid from public funds, both city and State. INFANTS. Institutions for infants, combining the functions of maternity hospitals, infants' hospitals, and foundling asylums, appeared in the fifties. St. Mary's asylum for widows, foundlings, and infants was incorporated in I852, but did not begin work until somewhat later. The nursery and child's hospital was established in New York city in 1854, and the New York infant asylum in 1865. The Massachusetts infant asylum was organized in I867, the foundlings' asylum of the sisters of charity in New York in I869, and the Philadelphia home for infants in I871. Finding the mortality among babies cared for in institutions in cities very high, these institutions either established country branches, or placed the younger children at board in families. The sisters of charity in New York, the Massachusetts infant asylum, and the nursery and child's hospital adopted the latter plan, and the first and second still continue its use for large numbers of their children. The New York infant asylum and the nursery and child's hospital have each established country branches, one in Westchester county and one on Staten island, in which their younger children are cared for. 42 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS Temporary homes for children, as distinguished from orphan asylums in which the residence was more permanent, were established in Boston in 1847, and in Philadelphia in 1856. The sheltering arms, established in New York city in i864, was designed especially for children of whom one or both parents are living, and are able to contribute towards the children's support. In i863 the New York catholic protectory was organized somewhat on the lines of the New York juvenile asylum. It received both boys and girls of all ages from two to sixteen years, and all classes of destitute, neglected, and delinquent children. It received substantial aid from the city and State for the erection of buildings, and the cost of maintenance was, from the first, borne largely, and in later years wholly, by the city through a per capita grant made under a mandate of the State legislature. This institution grew with great rapidity, having I,944 inmates on October I, I875, and has since become the largest children's institution in the United States, if not in the world. A similar institution, but receiving boys only, was established near Buffalo in i864. DISPOSAL OF OLDER CHILDREN. Most of the above-mentioned agencies made more or less use of indenture, adoption, or placing out of children. Many of the orphan asylums adopted a rule that boys should be bound out at the age of twelve and girls at the age of fourteen. In V the earlier history of Girard college many boys, upon leaving the institution, were bound out to farmers. As a rule, the orphan asylums seemed to regard the placing-out system rather as a convenient means of disposing of older children than as an essential part of the plan by which they were to benefit homeless children. There is little evidence of any adequate inquiry into the circumstances of the persons receiving children, or of any system of subsequent oversight. Tile children, after leaving the doors of the institution, were in too large measure lost DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 43 sight of. A few of the institutions, however, laid great stress upon the placing of orphan and permanently deserted children in families, and developed more or less satisfactory plans for finding homes for large numbers of children. Among such were the New York juvenile asylum (I851), the New England home for little wanderers (1865), and the New York foundling asylum (I869), all of which sent numbers of children to homes in the western States. At the date of the establishment of many of the orphan asylums there was more reason for retaining children for considerable periods of time than in later years. The public-school systems had not yet been adopted, and it seemed necessary, in order to secure the proper education of orphan children, that they should be collected in institutions. With the establishment of public-school systems, not only in the cities, but throughout the rural districts, this necessity disappeared, though many institutions failed to recognize the changed conditions under which their work was carried on. This perhaps contributed to the fact that a new type of organization appeared. CHILDREN S AID SOCIETIES. Societies, known as children's aid societies, were organized in New York in 1853, Baltimore in 1860, Boston in 1865, t Brooklyn in I866, Buffalo in I872, and Philadelphia in I882. The New York society, organized through the efforts of the late Rev. Charles Loring Brace in 1853, addressed itself to the improvement of the condition of the poor children in New York in many ways; through the establishment of lodginghouses for newsboys and other homeless children; by day and evening schools for children who were not reached by the public-school system; by reading-rooms and religious meetings; and by sending homeless children to families in the country. The last of these plans is the only one which comes directly within the scope of this paper. This plan was, in brief, to send homeless children in groups of from twenty to forty to some 44 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS point in the western States, where arrangements had been made for holding a large public meeting on the date of the arrival of the children. At this meeting, the work of the society was explained, and people were urged to receive these friendless children into their hearts and homes. A local committee had been appointed to pass upon applications, and to see that none but respectable people, able to give good homes to children, received them. In several important respects this plan differed from previous methods of placing out children by adoption or indenture. In selecting the territory offering the best opportunities for young people, even though at a great distance from New York city, in appealing to the humanity of the country people rather than to their business instincts, in taking the young children rather than the older ones, and in boldly asserting that the ordinary experiences of life in an ordinary family are a better preparation for self-support and self-guidance than institutional training - in these, and in other respects, the work challenges our admiration, for its boldness, its appreciation of the value of normal social forces, and its comprehensiveness. The children were received from the newsboys' lodging-houses, from orphan and infant asylums, from almshouses, and directly from parents. The results have undoubtedly justified the bold plans and large hopes of its founders. While it might be desired that fuller records had been kept and a somewhat more rigid supervision exercised, there is satisfactory evidence that a very large proportion of the children sent out have become integral and useful parts of the growing western communities. A number have attained considerable eminence in the professions; several have held important positions of public trust, and one became a governor of a western State. We shall allude later to the work of the society after I875. The statistics of children placed out have only recently been separated from those of families for whom transportation to a rural point was given, and for older boys for whose employment work was provided near New York DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 45 city. The number placed in families averaged almost exactly one thousand per year for the twenty years i854-75. It is probably not too much to say that this work affected the child problem of New York city, for the twenty years prior to I875, more strongly and beneficently than any other one factor. An interesting though not extensive work is that of the orphans' guardians of Philadelphia (i863). The object of this society is to rear and educate hebrew orphans by boarding them with a relative, or with some other worthy family, a member of the board of directors becoming the legal guardian of the child. The children's aid society of Baltimore was founded in i860 for the purpose of finding homes for destitute children. Ninetyeight children were placed in families during the first year. At first, only children from ten to fifteen years of age were received. Many of the children were received from the courts and magistrates, and on the ground that it was " an important adjunct to the police department," the city council appropriated to the society from $500 to $i,000 annually; the remainder was received from private contributions. In I87I Mr. Henry Watson bequeathed $ioo,ooo to the society, which thereafter was known as the Henry Watson children's aid society. No further contributions of public or private funds were solicited. The placing-out work was not largely increased, but a sewing school, a boarding home for working girls, and a lodging-house for adults and children were added to the placing-out department. The Boston children's aid society was organized in i863. Its purpose, according to the act of incorporation of i865, was that of "providing temporary homes for vagrant, destitute, and exposed children, and those under criminal prosecution, of tender age, in Boston and its vicinity, and of providing for them such other or further relief as may be advisable to rescue them from moral ruin." Apparently, the founders of the society were not quite clear as to just how they would care for 46 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS their children. Section 4 of the charter provided with admirable caution that "The directors shall have authority, at their discretion, to receive into their asylum or care such children of tender age as they may deem suitable objects of the charity intended by this institution." The directors were also given power to bind out children "in virtuous families," and to consent to their adoption. The first work of the society was the establishment of a temporary home in the country, known as Pine farm. The first annual report of the society is largely a description of this farm school, although the sentiment is expressed several times that it is the purpose of the society to maintain " an oversight and influence" over the boys after they leave the farm. Fifty-two boys were received the first year, and twenty-three were discharged, of whom eight were placed in families in the country. In the third annual report of the society we find the sentiment expressed by those in charge of the farm school that it is difficult to find places in families for the younger boys. The wish is expressed " that the society would authorize us to try the plan of paying moderate board in families in which we can trust them and thus enable us to benefit a larger number." The reports of the society prior to 1875 tell interestingly of the work of an admirable temporary home or training-school in the country, but give comparatively little promise of the splendid development of preventive work and of boarding out and placing out, carried on by the society in more recent years. The children's aid societies organized in Brooklyn in 1866, and in Buffalo in 1872, devoted their energies rather to the maintenance of lodging-houses, newsboys' homes, and industrial schools, than to the placing out of children. The beneficent work of the children's aid society of Pennsylvania was not begun until 1882, and will be considered in a subsequent chapter, as will also be that of the children's home societies. DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 47 IV-REMOVAL OF CHILDREN FROM ALMSHOUSES. In tracing the public care of children from I801 to 1875, we noted the scathing arraignment of the care of children in almshouses by the select committee of the New York senate in I856. From that time on the conviction spread that the collection of children in almshouses had been a terrible mistake.v Ten years later, the first of a series of laws for the removal of children from almshouses was passed. In some cases a different system of caring for children who were public charges was created; in other States, laws were passed prohibiting the sending of children to almshouses, or their retention therein for longer than a certain period, usually thirty, sixty, or ninety days, leaving the local authorities to make such other provision for the children as they might elect. In briefest outline, these laws were as follows: In I866 Ohio passed a law authorizing the establishment of county children's homes, after a favorable vote by the people in each case, to be supported by taxation and managed by boards of trustees appointed by the county commissioners. Three such homes were established between I866 and 1870; six during the decade I87-80; thirty-three between I880 and I890; and four since I890. In 1883 a supplementary law was passed prohibiting the retention of children over three years of age in poorhouses, unless separated from the adult paupers. For many years the enforcement of the law was extremely inadequate. In I898 the age to which children may be kept in almshouses was reduced from three years to one year. Massachusetts abolished the almshouse department at the State primary school at Monson in 1872, and thus separated the destitute children from adults, so far as State charges were concerned. In I879 a law was passed requiring overseers of the poor of cities to place destitute children over four years of age in families or asylums and to provide for their maintenance. 48 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS In 1887 it was provided that whenever the overseers of any city, except Boston, failed to comply with this law, the State board of lunacy and charity should provide for the children at the expense of such cities. In I893 the laws of 1879 and 1887 were amended so as to relate to towns as well as cities. Michigan was the first State to treat the matter in a really comprehensive, effective manner. In I869 a commission, appointed by the governor, made an exhaustive inquiry into the condition of children in the county poorhouses, and the methods of caring for such children in other States. The report of the 1 commission, submitted in 1871, stated that there were about 600 children under sixteen years of age in poorhouses in Michigan. The degrading influences of such surroundings were pointed out, and action for the removal of the children was suggested. The commission suggested the adoption of one of three plans: first, a State placing-out agency by which dependent children should be removed from the county poorhouses and placed directly in private families; second, the removal of the children to private orphan asylums to be supported therein at State expense; third, the establishment of a State primary school " after the plan of that at Monson, Mass." N The commission appeared to favor the second plan, but the legislature proved to be more radical. It disregarded the many requests that were made for State aid to private institutions, and passed a law creating a State public school for dependent v children, to which all destitute children in the State who were public charges were to be removed, and from which they were to be placed out in families as soon as possible. The institution was opened at Coldwater, in May, I874. In 1875 a law was enacted in New York, through the efforts of the State board of charities, supported by the State charities aid association and others, requiring the removal of all children over three years of age, not defective in body or mind, from poorhouses, and directing that they be placed in families, orphan asylums, or other appropriate institutions, and that the DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 49 public authorities make provision for their maintenance. This legislation was the culmination of a movement extending over some eight years. The State board of charities, created in i867, found, on its first examination of the almshouses of the State in i868, 2,231 children in these institutions, I,222 being in county poorhouses and i,oo9 in the children's departments of the almshouses of New York city and Brooklyn. Efforts were made by this board and by other public-spirited citizens to induce the county boards of supervisors to make other provision for the children, either by placing them in families or by sending them to children's homes and paying their board. In some counties many of the children were, by one or both of these methods, removed from the poorhouses. Nevertheless, at the close of I874 there were still 2,o66 children in almshouses. The number in county poorhouses had been reduced to 593, but in New York city and Brooklyn it had risen to i,473. The law of 1875 created no machinery for placing out or otherwise providing for the children. The local authorities quite promptly complied with the law, and within two or three years 'the plan of supporting destitute children at public expense in private institutions became the settled policy of the State. In I878 the New York law was amended by reducing the age to which children may be retained in almshouses, from three years to two years, and by abolishing the exemption of defective children. In I878 Wisconsin passed a law requiring the removal of children from almshouses, but made no other provision for them until eight years later, when, in i885, it established a State public school for dependent children, following closely the lines of the Michigan system. In I883 Pennsylvania enacted a law prohibiting the retention of children between the ages of two and sixteen years, unless feeble-minded or defective, in poorhouses for a longer period than sixty days. The county authorities, being left to make such provision for their children as they might choose. adopted 4 50 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS various plans. Most of the larger counties entered into cooperation with the children's aid society of Pennsylvania, under whose care the children were boarded in families at the expense of the counties until permanent free homes were found for them. In 1883 Connecticut also passed a law directing the establishment of a temporary home for children in each county, and prohibiting the retention of children over two years of age in almshouses. In I895 a penalty for non-compliance with this law was provided. Unfortunately the law was amended in 1897 so as to permit the retention of children under four years of age in almshouses. In 1885 Rhode Island established a State home and school for children, and in I892 made mandatory the removal of all children from almshouses to the State home. 'In I890 Maryland passed a law prohibiting the retention of children between the ages of three and sixteen years, unless mentally defective, in almshouses for a longer period than ninety days. The local authorities, as a rule, sent the children to private institutions, paying for their support. In I895 New Hampshire passed a law prohibiting the retention of children between the ages of three and fifteen, except the feeble-minded, in almshouses for a longer period than thirty days. The overseers of the poor and county commissioners were directed to place such children in orphan asylums or in private families. A State board of charities was created by the same statute, and was charged with the duty of enforcing this law. In I897 Indiana passed a law prohibiting the retention of all children between the ages of three and seventeen years in any poorhouse after January I, I898. A State placing-out agency, under the direction of the State board of charities, was created by the same statute to assist and promote the placing out of children from the various county homes. DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 51 In 1899 New Jersey created a State board of children's guardians, in which is vested the custody of all children who become public charges. The law also forbids the retention of children more than one year of age in almshouses for a longer period than thirty days. The children are to be boarded in private families until permanent homes can be found. The removal of children from almshouses is a lamentable; illustration of the slowness with which such reforms proceed. Thirty-three years have passed since Ohio enacted the first law in the United States looking toward the removal of all children from almshouses, but as yet barely a dozen Statesabout one-fourth of the whole number have followed her example and even in these States the laws are not, in several cases, fully enforced. In 1897, and again in I899, the Illinois legislature eliminated from pending bills relating to the care of children, a provision prohibiting their retention in almshouses. Connecticut, as noted above, took a backward step in I897. These are exceptions, however, and the movement has steadily, though very slowly, gained in momentum, and such legislation will, beyond doubt, become more general and more stringent and will be better enforced as the years pass. The census of I880 showed that the actual number of chil- / dren in almshouses between two and sixteen years of age, in the United States, was 7,770. The earlier censuses did not give this item of information. The census of I890 showed that the number had been reduced, during the preceding ten years, from 7,770 to 4,987. Considering the increase of twenty-five per cent. in the general population, the decrease of thirty-six per cent. in the number of children in almshouses is not without encouragement. The number of children between two and sixteen years of age in almshouses to every I00,000 of the total population was reduced from fifteen in 1880 to eight in I890. Included in the total of 4,987 are large numbers of defective children, and also many children retained in so-called children's asylums connected with almshouses, but in which 52 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS the children are not immediately associated with adult paupers, a plan which is just a little less objectionable than keeping both classes in the same building. The statistics on this point in the census of 1900 will be awaited with interest. Contrary to the general opinion, the States in which there were still large numbers of children in almshouses in 1890 are not confined to the south. In fact, as shown by the following table, the sixteen States which are the worst offenders in this regard include ten of the sixteen States which comprised the Union in 1801: NUMBER OF CHILDREN BETWEEN TWO AND SIXTEEN YEARS OF AGE IN ALMSHOUSES, TO EVERY 100,000 OF THE GENERAL POPULATION. I900. N ew H am pshire.................................................. 46 Vermont...................................................... 27 W est Virginia..................................................... 25 N ew Jersey........................................................... 23 Virginia........................................................ I9 Maine....................................................... i..8 O hio.......................................................... 17 Rhode Island................................................................ 16 Massachusetts................................................. 15 Indiana........................................................... 15 Kentucky........................................................... 4 Montana........................................................... 12 N orth Carolina.................................................. IO Pennsylvania........................................................... 8 Illinois.......................................................... 8 Tennessee........................................................ 8 V PUBLIC SYSTEMS OTHER THAN ALMSHOUSE CARE. The systems adopted in various States for the care of destitute children outside of almshouses may be roughly classified as follows: a. The State school and placing-out system, adopted by Michigan, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Montana, Nevada, and Texas. b. The county children's home system, adopted by Ohio, Connecticut, and Indiana. DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 53 c. The plan of supporting public charges in private instituwitions, which prevails in New York, California, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and to some extent in several other States. d. The boarding-out and placing-out system, which is carried on directly by the public authorities in Massachusetts; through a private organization- the children's aid societyin Pennsylvania; and has just been undertaken by the State authorities in New Jersey. a. THE STATE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. Although Massachusetts established a State primary school at Monson in I866, by collecting there all children from the other two State almshouses, and removed the larger part of the adult paupers therefrom in I872, this institution was only for the care of the " unsettled" poor children. Each city and town still cared for its local poor, including destitute children, in its own way -often in the almshouse. Michigan was the first State to establish an exclusive State ' system for the care of all destitute children who become public charges, by collecting them in one central institution, from which they are, as soon as possible, placed out in families. Neither the State nor the local authorities place any children in private institutions, nor make any appropriations to private agencies. The " Michigan plan" has become known far and wide, and has been adopted by a number of other States. During the twenty-five years of its existence this system has followed closely the lines laid down by its founders. These have already been suggested in part. Children are committed by the judges of probate of the various counties, upon the application of the superintendents of the poor. Subsequent legislation authorized the commitment to the school of neglected and ill-treated children in the same manner. All such children become wards of the State, but may be returned to their parents by the voluntary action of the board of control of the school. 54 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS The system is under the direction of an unsalaried board of control of three members, appointed by the governor and serving for a term of six years each, one member being appointed every other year. The State public school, located at Coldwater, is not unlike many other well managed institutions on the cottage plan. At the outset, a system of county agents was established, the governor being authorized to appoint in each county an agent to investigate applications from families desiring to receive children, and to visit the children placed in homes in his county from any of the State institutions. These agents receive a per diem allowance, limited in certain counties to a maximum of $Ioo, and in other counties, including large cities, to a maximum of $200, per year. There is also a State agent appointed by the board of control, whose duties are to investigate applications for children, and to visit children who have been placed out. Children of all ages under fourteen years are received at the school, and are retained only until, in the opinion of the superintendent, they are fitted to be placed in homes, and satisfactory homes are found. The average age of the 4,493 children received from the opening of the school in May, I874, to July I, 1898, was six and fourfifths years. Sixty-six per cent. of the total number were boys. Among the number were 238 colored children and twelve Indian children. About one-third of the whole number, or, to be exact, 1,311, came directly from poorhouses, and 3,182 from the homes of parents, relatives, or others. The census of the institution has varied from I50 to 250. In 1884 it reached 255. On June I, 1898, it had fallen to 160. The expenses of maintaining the school, including salaries of State and county agents, has ranged from $36,000 to $45,000 per year. The expenditure for the year ending July I, I898, was less than for any preceding year since 1887. The number of children placed out in families, and remaining under supervision of the school, has varied during the past decade from 900 to 1,200. The DESTITUTE, NEGIECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 55 total number of children received since the opening of the school were accounted for on July I, I898, in the following manner: Remaining in school July I, 1898.................................. In families under supervision............................ Adopted by families....................................... Girls who have married....................................... Died: At the school.................................... 94 In families............................................ 6 159 1,304 426 128 I54 Restored to parents........................................ 563 Declared self-supporting.................................... 950 Become of age........................................................ 275 Returned to counties.......................................... 534 Total number received........................................ 4,493 When the school was established there were about six hundred children in the poorhouses of the State. Although the population of the State increased from I870 to I890 nearly seventy-seven per cent., and although laws have been enacted and enforced for the rescue of neglected and ill-treated children, who have thus become wards of the State and inmates of the State public school, the number of children who are public charges actually decreased from 600 in 1874 to 300 in 1890, the latter figure including about one hundred defective children in almshouses. Minnesota established a similar institution in 1885, copying the Michigan statute in most particulars. The school was opened in December, I886. One feature of the Michigan plan, the county agent system, was omitted. Reliance was placed upon State agents employed directly by and under the control of the school. In I897 the county superintendents of schools were made exofficio agents of the State public school. The census of the school has increased slowly but quite steadily. The average census for the year ended July I, 1898, was 256, as against 159 in the Michigan school for the same period. 56 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS The i,785 received from the opening of the school, Decemn ber, i886, to July I, i898, are thus accounted for: Remaining in school July i, i898................................. 257 In families under supervision............................... I,025 Adopted by families........................................ 46 Girls who have married...................................... Died.................................................... 53 Returned to parents........................................104 Self-supporting............................................ 79 Attained majority.........................................137 Returned to counties........................................ 75 Total number received.................................. 1,785 The average age of the children when received was slightly higher than in Michigan, being 8.i6 years, as against 6.8 in Michigan. Of the I,382 children indentured since the school opened, the following account is given:N.Per No. cent. In good homes, progressing steadily, doing well............ 768 56 Not so promising, or in less desirable homes, doing fairly well.. 435 3I Give no promise of becoming useful, doing poorly............ I79 13 A special study was made in i897 and i898 of io6 children, who had passed seventeen years of age, and one or both of whose parents were known to have been of bad character. Personal visits were made in each case in order to gain full information. It was found that eighty-three per cent. were young people of good character. The investigation covered all children of bad parentage placed in families and now past seventeen years of age. Wisconsin established a State school in the same year as Minnesota, and also kept largely to the Michigan plan. The school was on the cottage plan, and was opened in November, i886. The census has been as high as 200, but on September 30, i898, was only I41. The I,92I inmates, received from the opening of the school to September 30, i898, are accounted for as follows: Remaining in school September 30, I898....................... 14T In families under supervision................................ I,340 Adopted.................................................. 94 DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 57 Married.................................................... 14 Died...................................................... 27 Returned to counties........................................... 163 Returned to homes (parents?).................................... 8 Transferred to other institutions.................................. 77 Run away from homes and not found............................. 57 1,921 Rhode Island established its State home and school for children in the same year, 1885, as Minnesota and Wisconsin. The institution was placed under the control of the State board of education, but in I89I it was placed under the charge of a newly created board of control consisting of seven members. The statute establishing the school was very brief, and left substantially everything to the State board of education. An amending act, passed in 1888, declared that the object of the institution was to provide for neglected and dependent children 'not recognized as vicious or criminal. The board of education was authorized, in its discretion, to place children in families, and was made the legal guardian of all children admitted to the institution. Placing-out is one of the objects of this institution, but because of the lack of placing-out agents, and also, perhaps, owing to the small size of the State, the placing of children in families has not been carried on as largely as in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The 530 children received from the opening of the institution in April, I885, to December 31, I898, are accounted for in the following manner: Remaining in home December 31, I898........................... 137 Placed in families.............................................. 335 Returned to local authorities...................................... 29 Died........................................... 5 Become of age................................................. 2 Run away........................................................ I3 Sent to reform school............................................ 9 530 Kansas established a State home for soldiers' orphans in 1887. As the applications for the admission of soldiers' or 58 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS phans decreased, the institution was opened to other destitute children by a statute of I890, which applied to the school the essential features of the Michigan system, except that the county superintendents of schools were made ex-officio its county agents. Gradually the character of the institution has been assimilated to that of the State public schools above described. Of the I90 children in the institution on August 28, 1899, there were o09 soldiers' orphans. Until the institution was fully recognized as a State school for dependent children the State made small appropriations to a number of private institutions. Colorado established a State home for dependent children, opened in March, I896. Prior to that time dependent children were county charges, and were either detained in almshouses or placed in private institutions at county expense. Montana has a State orphans' home, opened in September, I894. Of the 145 children admitted from that date to December I, I898, thirty-three have been placed in families and thirtyfour returned to relatives. The last annual report expresses the opinion that it is better to develop an efficient placing-out system than to keep the children and teach them trades. Nevada also has a State orphanage, established at an earlier date than any other State institution for children except that of Massachusetts, since closed. It was opened in 1864, the year of the admission of Nevada as a State. It is under the control of a board consisting of the State surveyor, the State superintendent of public instruction, and the State treasurer. The census varies from seventy-five to one hundred. Children are placed in families occasionally, but this is not regarded as an important feature of the work. Though a strictly State institution, it received a legacy of $5,000 in I886 for an industrial department. Texas, too, has a State orphan asylum, opened in I889. This institution is endowed by lands set apart for the purpose, when Texas, having seceded from Mexico, was organized as an inde DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN ^ 59 pendent republic, about 1836. The census of the institution on November I, 1885, was 260. The endowment very evidently tends to encourage the retention, rather than the placing out, of the children. During, or just after the close of, the civil war, Iowa established three homes for soldiers' orphans. As the numbers decreased two of the homes were closed. In July, 1876, the name of the third was changed to " Iowa soldiers' orphans' home and home for indigent children," and it was opened to all destitute children who were public charges in the State. It was intended that all children in the almshouses should be removed to this institution, but the law was not obligatory. The census of the home was thus divided at various dates: Soldiers' Other destitute orphans. children. 1879............................................ 98 44 1887.....................................................42 209 1897.............................................. 297 190 The State of Nebraska made appropriations for a number of years to the home for the friendless at Lincoln, an institution under private management. The State gradually increased its control over the institution as it increased its appropriations, and in 1899 took entire charge of the institution. The governor is to appoint the superintendent, who is to conduct the institution under rules and regulations prescribed by the board of public lands and buildings. Eleven States have thus established institutions for depend- V ent children, following more or less closely the Michigan model. Among the undoubted advantages of this plan are the following: (I.) It offers little or no inducement to parents to throw their children upon the public for support. The fact that the custody of the children is to be vested in State authorities, and - that the children are to be removed to an institution at some distance, from which after a brief period they are to be placed in families, discourages parents from parting from their children unless such a course is really necessary. Nor does this A 6o AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS requirement, as a rule, work unnecessary hardship. The board of control can relinquish to worthy parents the custody of their children, if such a course becomes desirable, and does so in numerous cases. Furthermore, the fact that sending a child to the State institution involves the transfer of its guardianship to the State authorities affords a logical and altogether satisfactory division of the field of charitable work, as between the State and private agencies. It is natural and proper that the private institutions should receive children for whom only temporary care is needed. Such a dividing line is not easily established in States in which the subsidy system has been adopted, or in which there is a county home for children under the care of public authorities in each county. The superintendent of the Minnesota State public school recently reports that " The most important development in private charities for children in this State seems to be a complete change in the functions of such institutions. They have become places for the accommodation of children whose parents wish to place their children in an institution for a short time, until they can take them and care for them again themselves." (2.) One institution, supported by the State, is much less apt to increase in size indefinitely than a number of similar institutions, each of which is apt to become a centre of local interest and local pride which is more enthusiastic than wise. (3.) The State is a more intelligent, resourceful, impartial, and efficient administrative unit than local political divisions. It commands a better grade of talent, and as a rule more ample resources. Its institutions are generally less subject to partisan influences than those of cities, counties, or towns. (4.) The placing-out system, which has been made the most important feature of the best State systems, restores the children more promptly than any other method to the normal life of the family and of the community. In the State institutions there are none of the incentives to retain children unduly, such as are apt to prevail in local institutions, or in private institu DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 6I tions receiving per capita allowances from public funds. The effective use of the placing-out system not only secures to the children the undoubtedly superior advantages of family life and training, but also diminishes correspondingly the public bur-V den. The amounts spent by the States of Michigan and Minnesota for the care of destitute children seem almost ridiculously small when compared with the amounts expended in other States; yet there is every reason for believing that the needs of the destitute and neglected children are nowhere more adequately met than in those States. The leading objections that have been urged against the v State school system are: That it is subject to the influences of partisan politics, and all the evils of the spoils system; that the trustees, superintendents, officers and teachers are likely to be selected, not because of fitness, but because of political services or influence; that with every change in the political control of the State, the trustees and officers are likely to be removed, and inexperienced persons of doubtful qualifications placed in charge; and that the plan does not enlist the co-operation and tsupport of the better classes of citizens, who, it is presumed, do not participate actively in politics. These are serious charges, if well founded. It is the opinion of the writer, after careful / study of this phase of the subject, that some of the State schools for dependent children have not been wholly free at times from harmful partisa influences, but that such disturbances have been but temporary, and have not seriously impaired the proper development of the system, nor endangered the welfare of any considerable number of the children. The Michigan school, after being practically free from partisanship for nearly twenty years, was suddenly, in I89I, deprived of its board of control and placed, with the other charitable and with the penal institutions of the State, under a newly created board of control of a different political complexion. On at least one other occasion it had passed through political upheavals in the State without disturbance. In this case, after two years, the former political 62 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS conditions returned, and the separate board of control of the school was re-established. During the twenty-five years of its existence the school has had nine different superintendents, though it is stated on 'the best of authority that only two of these changes have been due in any degree to politics, and on several occasions superintendents of a different political faith from the board of control have been appointed and retained in office. The new political control, created in I891, discontinued the State visiting agent - a most short-sighted step, which resulted in losing track of a number of the placed-out children. It is a question, however, whether the disturbances to which the Michigan State school has been subjected by politics have been more serious than those from which many private institutions suffer, in a correspondingly long period, from the influence of managers of limited experience, or who give but little time or thought to their duties, or who are actuated by motives akin to those which too often prevail in politics. The Minnesota institution has had a history of which any institution, public or private, might well be proud. Its original board of control has never been abolished or superseded by any other body. One of the original board of commissioners, appointed to select the site and organize the school, has been from the first president of the board. A former State agent and assistant superintendent of the Michigan institution was made the first superintendent of the Minnesota school, and has remained continuously in charge until the present, and has progressively and consistently developed its work. The esteem in which he and other workers in similar institutions are held by those interested in child-saving work in all parts of the country is indicated by the fact that he has been appointed chairman of the child-saving section of the twenty-seventh national conference of charities and correction, while the president of the conference will be a former superintendent of the Kansas State institution for children. DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 63 The Rhode Island institution is also believed to have been substantially free from partisanship; that of Wisconsin, somewhat less so. While the danger of political interference is a real one, it must be borne in mind that there is an increasing application of the merit system to public charitable institutions; that untoward influences of a character akin to partisanship are not lacking in many private institutions; that in many States public sentiment is such that it has become "bad politics " to interfere with State institutions, and that the State system possesses many superior advantages, enumerated above, which, in our opinion, far outweigh the dangers arising from politics. On the whole, the State public school for dependent children is undoubtedly the distinctively American contribution to public systems of child-saving work. Several States, including Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kansas, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin, have established State homes for soldiers' orphans. Since these institutions were created to meet a special need which, let us hope, is not likely to recur, their work will not be considered in detail in this paper. The decreasing number of applications for admissions to such institutions has already created an interesting problem as to their future. Kansas and Iowa have already solved the difficulty by gradually converting their State soldiers' orphans' homes into State public schools for dependent children. Minnesota and Wisconsin abolished their institutions; the latter State, after maintaining the institution from i866 to i876, turned the buildings over to her State university. Illinois could not do better than follow the example of Kansas and Iowa. Efforts in the same direction have already been made in Pennsylvania, though there is little need in that State of a State public school for dependent children on account of the efficient work of the children's aid society. The increasing amount of the State subsidies to private orphan asylums and children's homes in Pennsylvania' affords, however, a plausible argument I All these items were vetoed by the governor, after the last legislative session, on account of an impending deficit 64 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS for the establishment of a State institution of this character. Indiana, strange to say, maintained her soldiers' orphans' home and her school for the feeble-minded in the same buildings and under the same management until 1885, when they were separated. b. THE COUNTY CHILDREN'S HOME SYSTEM. Some fifteen years before Michigan established her now famous State public school for dependent children, a kindhearted woman, who had been touched by the forlorn condition of the twenty-six children associated with adult paupers in the Washington county (Ohio) almshouse, established, under her personal direction, a small home for children on a farm ten miles from the city of Marietta. The county commissioners placed the children from the poorhouse under her care, paying her a per capita rate of $I per week for their maintenance. With a view to securing similar care for children in the other almshouses of the State, a bill was presented to the legislature of 1864 authorizing counties to establish homes for children. These homes were to be wholly apart from almshouses and under the control of boards of trustees appointed by the county commissioners, and supported by public funds. The bill became law in 1866. Subsequently, the State board of charities exerted a powerful influence in behalf of the establishment of such homes, with the result that from 1866 to I890 fifty were established. The placing-out system was not recognized as an important feature of the original plan; very likely because the good woman, through whose influence the bill was framed, had been drawn into the work through observing the cruelty to which an orphan child, who had been placed in a family of low character, was subjected. The county homes varied much in the extent to which they placed out children, but only one or two of them undertook such work extensively. In 1893 only two of the county homes employed visiting agents, though several placed out children through private agencies. DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 65 According to a report compiled by the secretary of the State board of charities of Ohio in February, i893, the forty-six county homes had accommodations for 3,522 children. The total number of children received since the establishment of the system was I5,290; of whom 4,973 had been placed in families by adoption or indenture, 3,8I7 had been returned to parents or guardians, 425 had died, and 2,I58 remained in the homes February I3, I893. The remaining 3,9I7 are not accounted for. The average length of time the children were kept in the county homes was about two years and two months, as compared with about one year in the Minnesota State school and six months in the Michigan school. One county home reported an average retention of children for ten years, one seven years, one five years, one three years, two seven months, one six months, and one four months. No reports are given of the placed-out children, who remained under the oversight of the homes, and probably only fragmentary records are kept of the children after they are placed out; certainly there is no uniform system of supervision for such children. In Ohio, therefore, the county system has proved to be seriously lacking in securing uniform and effective action by the various local authorities. In Connecticut a number of persons who had been active in the establishment of a private home for children caused a bill to be introduced in the legislature of i882 prohibiting the retention of children in almshouses. The bill failed of passages but a commission was appointed to inquire into the subject. Upon the recommendation of this commission a law was passed in i883, authorizing the establishment in each county of a temporary home for children, and such a home was opened in each of the eight counties of the State before January I, i898. The homes have, in each case, been removed from the sites first chosen, and their management has undergone at least one radical change. The present plan provides that each county home shall be managed by a board, consisting of three county, 5 66 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS commissioners, one member of the State board of health, and one member of the State board of charities. Admission is by the selectmen of a town, in which case the child is a town charge, or by a formal commitment by a justice of the peace, judge of probate, or judge of a city or police court, in which case the child becomes a ward of the State, the guardianship being vested in the board of managers of the home, and the expense of maintenance being borne by the State. While a majority of the board of managers of the homes are county officials, the expense is borne very largely by the State, the remainder being paid by the towns. The State board of charities is authorized to recommend to the boards of managers suitable family homes in which children may be placed, and is authorized to visit children who have been placed out. Two agents are employed by the State board of charities for this purpose. Under this plan of a divided responsibility, and of a number of local institutions, it is not strange that the numbers of children have increased rapidly. One county home, to relieve overcrowding, has for three years boarded a number of its younger children in families with satisfactory results. One county, after maintaining a home in two different locations, accepted the offer of a private asylum, and for the past ten years the children have been boarded in this asylum by the county board of management, at the rate of $1.50 per week. The 4,746 children received from the opening of the homes to September 30, I898, are thus accounted for: Remaining in county homes, September 30, I898.................. 728 Placed in families.............................................. 2,359 Returned to friends (relatives)...................................,616 Placed under care of clergymen.................................. 59 Placed in other institutions..................................... 323 Recalled by selectmen........................................... 9 D ied.......................................................... 80 5,356 Duplicated in above reckoning................................. 6io 4,746 DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 67 In addition to the county home system, the town of Norwalk maintains a home for children in a building formerly used as a town almshouse, and several towns board children in private asylums. A recent official report states in regard to the county temporary homes: " It is very difficult to preserve their temporary character, and the number of children in the homes increases steadily year by year." In I898, at the instance of one of the city boards of charity, the legislature authorized the retention of children in almshouses until four years of age, instead of two years, as formerly. This was done to prevent overcrowding in one of the county temporary homes, but it was a serious backward step. Indiana, in 1881, authorized boards of county commissioners to establish orphans' homes, which were to be placed under the immediate charge of matrons. Boards of unpaid visitors were to be appointed, but no form of actual control was provided except by the county commissioners and the matrons. Subsequently, under legislative authority, the commissioners intrusted the management of the county children's asylums to "local associations." In I896, there were county homes for children in forty-three of the ninety-two counties of the State. No statistics concerning the operations of these asylums prior to I896 are available. The constant increase in the number of children led to a movement in I897 to establish a State school for dependent children; the actual result, however, was a system of State supervision of the county institutions, and the establishment of a State placing-out agency under the State board of charities. The agent of the State board began by visiting the county homes and enlisting an interest in the placing-out system. He is authorized to visit children placed out from county homes and to remove children from county homes, and place them in families. At the end of the first two years' work of the State agent two hundred and eight children placed by him in families remained under his supervision. The county homes had also increased the number of children placed in 68 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS families from about five hundred per year to about seven hundred. The number of children remaining in the county orphan asylums on April I, i897, was I,5I4, as compared with I,554 in I898. In some States in which no system is enforced by law, there are isolated instances of county orphan asylums under public control. There are two such in Pennsylvania, one in Maryland, one in New York, and possibly others. The advantages that have been claimed for the county system are, that it enlists the interest of the best citizens of the various counties; that it avoids sending the children to a distance (a doubtful benefit); and that the institutions can be kept smaller and, therefore, more homelike, and are less likely to institutionalize the children. As a matter of fact, experience has clearly demonstrated that the system possesses none of these benefits, except, possibly, the first, and that the local interest which is aroused is more enthusiastic than wise in regard to child-saving methods, and tends to the upbuilding of large institutions as a matter of local pride. A number of children's institutions scattered over a State have an almost irresistible tendency to increase the numbers of children who become public charges; parents are much more likely to part from their children for unworthy or insufficient causes; the management lacks uniformity and efficiency; the officials of the various homes are less expert than those of State institutions. The results are shown by comparison of the numbers of children cared for under the State and county systems in adjoining States in which conditions are similar. Ohio has one child a public charge to every I,$36 of the population; Indiana has one to every I,4IO; and Michigan only one to every I3,168. Connecticut has one dependent child a public charge in every I,025 of the population; Rhode Island only one to 2,522. (In each case the census of i890 is used for general population.) The argument that county insti DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 69 tutions are smaller and more homelike than State institutions falls to the ground in view of the fact that the leading State institutions are on the cottage plan, and also because the State institutions are but little larger than a number of the county institutions. In fact, one of the county temporary homes of Connecticut is larger than the State institution of Michigan, Wisconsin, or Rhode Island, while two other Connecticut county homes and three of the Ohio county homes are nearly as large as any of the three State institutions above mentioned. The weakness of the county system is further shown by the fact that both Connecticut and Indiana have already established State agencies for removing the children from the county institutions and placing them in families. The influence of the Ohio State board of charities is constantly exerted to secure more extended placing-out from county homes. It has been doubtful, however, whether a State placing-out agency can ever overcome the disadvantages of local control. It is not too much to say that the county children's home system has been fairly and fully tried, and has been found wanting. C. PUBLIC SUPPORT IN PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS. It is doubtful whether any State deliberately and intentionally adopted this plan as a general State system. Usually it has been undertaken in various localities as a temporary expedient, and then gradually extended, until, by permission of the State, rather than by its direction, it has become the prevailing system. NEW YORK. In New York, public subsidies to private institutions began many years before the passage of the law for the removal of children from almshouses. In 1811 the State authorized the payment of $500 yearly to the New York orphan asylum, from the public funds derived from auction sales; the same 7o AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS favor was later extended to the Roman catholic orphan asylum, organized in I8I7. The house of refuge for juvenile offenders, organized in 1824, was from the first largely supported by State funds. So far as known no other State appropriations were made to orphan asylums until I847, when, in addition to the sum of $500 to each of the two asylums mentioned above, $3,000 was appropriated by the State to be distributed among orphan asylums for the education of their inmates. The number of institutions receiving aid, and the total amounts granted, increased with considerable regularity for ten years, reaching a total of $50,000 in I857. During the years immediately preceding and subsequent to the outbreak of the civil war, the amounts were reduced, being only $II,000 in 1861. In 1866 the sum of $55,033 was distributed among fiftyeight institutions; in I870 $I50o,00 was appropriated to orphan asylums, to be divided among the counties in proportion to the total valuation of property, and within the county to be divided among the asylums in proportion to the number of their inmates. In addition to this, thirty-five institutions received specific appropriations, ranging from $5oo to $5,000 each. Many private charities besides orphan asylums received State aid. The propriety of prohibiting such appropriations was considered by the constitutional conventions of I846 and 1867. The latter convention adopted an amendment looking in this direction, but the entire revision failed of adoption by popular vote. The total amount granted by the State to private charities increased rapidly from $95,000 in I863 to $9I0,000 in I872. This rapid growth, and the "log-rolling" and other objectionable practices in the legislature, growing out of the custom, were undoubtedly responsible for the fact that the constitutional commission of 1873 adopted an amendment prohibiting the State from using either its money or its credit in aid of any private undertaking, except in behalf of juvenile delinquents. This amendment was ratified by the people in DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 71 November, i874, and put a sudden end to the granting of State subsidies. Only one institution was seriously altered in character by this step. The private asylum for destitute Indian children was soon afterwards reorganized as a State institution, and remains the only State institution in New York for destitute children. About i850 some of the cities, counties, and towns also had begun to make appropriations to such institutions, usually in the form of a per capita allowance for public charges, but in some instances in gross amounts. Various institutions in New York city, not wishing to depend upon the voluntary action of the city authorities each year, secured laws directing the city to pay them a certain sum per week for each child under their care. These sums were at first much below the actual cost to the institutions, but various amending acts were secured increasing the rates of payment, and with the fall in prices after i870, the city allowances came to be sufficient to meet the entire cost of maintenance, and in some cases to leave a considerable margin to be applied to the erection of new buildings or the reduction of indebtedness. The passage of the children's law in i875, directing that children be removed from almshouses and placed either in families or in institutions for children, gave new impetus to the system. No official authorities were created for placing children in families, and though it was hoped and expected by the framers of the law that it would result in a very great extension of the placing-out system, such has not been its effect. The word almshouse was held to mean any institution maintained by public officers for the support of the poor, whether connected with an almshouse for adults, or otherwise. Most of the i,473 children in the city almshouses on Randall's island and the almshouse nursery in Brooklyn, who were not defective in mind or body, were sent to private institutions, though some were sent to the west through the children's aid society. Two of the smaller counties, and one small city, se 72 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS cured special laws authorizing them to establish children's homes apart from their almshouses, but so fully was the transition to a private system effected that of 31,799 destitute, neglected, and wayward children in institutions (not including reformatories) in the State on September 30, 1897, less than:25 were in public institutions. Another important factor in the situation was the feature of the law which required children to be placed, when practicable, in institutions controlled by persons of the same religious faith as the parents of the children. It is evident that this plan involved the maximum of inducements for the upbuilding of large institutions and for the discouragement of the placing-out system. The income of the institutions depended wholly upon the number of children received and the length of their retention. A large number of children could be supported at a less per capita rate than a small number. Being under the control of persons of their own religious faith, the institutions naturally commanded the confidence of the children's parents, and of their spiritual advisers. The fact that the parents, by placing their children in institutions, were virtually receiving public aid was so disguised as not to be perceived, and many of the parents, particularly those of foreign birth, came to regard the institutions somewhat in the light of free boarding schools. The institutions being in many cases under the control of religious bodies, naturally were inclined to retain the children until thoroughly instructed and trained in the faith, and also to receive as many as possible of the children who might otherwise be won over to other faiths. In fact, the largest of all the institutions was established because, in the words of one of its authorities, " hundreds, yes, thousands of catholic children were lost to the faith through a system (of placing-out) which ignored such a thing as religious rights in the helpless objects of its charity." Sound morality and good public policy are on the side of keeping children who have received definite religious training and instruction under the influence of the faith in which they have been DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 73 instructed. In regard to younger children, who as yet have no special religious training or convictions, it is also well, whenever practicable, to keep them under the influences of the faith of their fathers. The workings of the children's law, however, went to the other extreme and arrayed that strongest of influences, sectarian zeal, on the side of the upbuilding of institutions, and brought to its support the strong arm of the law and the ample resources of the public purse. New institutions were incorporated for the purpose of receiving these allowances of public funds, and there grew up what can be described only as a rivalry on the part of various institutions to secure the commitment of large numbers of children to their care. The result was inevitable; children's institutions, of a size hitherto unknown, were developed and the number of dependent children increased out of all proportion to the population. From 1875 to 1892 the general population of the State increased thirty-eight per cent; the number of children in institutions, ninety-six per cent. Comparatively few of the children were placed in families, the great majority of them being returned to their parents or relatives upon reaching a self-supporting age. Little or no supervision was exercised over the few children placed in families, and none whatever over children returned to relatives, so that it is impossible to speak with any authority as to the essential character of the product of the institutional training. Extravagant statements have been made both for and against - the simple fact is that we do not certainly know. Such in general is the New York system, whose features were most strongly emphasized in the larger cities. Certain exceptions should be noted. Richmond county adopted the system of boarding children in families until free homes could be found, and in this way kept the numbers at a minimum. Erie county, alarmed by the growing expense for this purpose has, since 1879, employed one, and later two, agents, working 74 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS under the direction of the board of supervisors, to place children in families. Certain of the older institutions, whose general lines of work had been well established before the law of I875, have been comparatively unaffected by the new conditions, and, not being wholly dependent upon the income from public funds, have been less subject to the tendencies of the per capita system. The institutions under religious control have naturally retained children longer than the non-denominational institutions. Of i,935 children who, on September 30, I894, had been supported by the city of New York more than five years in institutions, I,6I2 or 83 per cent were in catholic institutions; 268 or I4 per cent in jewish institutions, and 55 or 3 per cent in protestant or non-sectarian institutions. This was doubtless due partly to a lack of confidence in the placing-out system, partly to the difficulty of securing catholic and hebrew families, and partly to a desire to retain the children until firmly established in their respective faiths. A notable exception to the general rule is the New York foundling hospital (R. C.), which almost from its earliest history has placed a very large proportion of its children by adoption before they have reached the age of five years. The objectionable features of the New York system have been somewhat modified during the past five years. The constitutional convention of i894 made two important changes. It forbade the legislature from thereafter compelling cities, counties, or towns to make appropriations to private institutions, thus putting a stop to the mandatory legislation which left the city no choice but to pay fixed gross amounts or per capita rates to a large number of private charities. The courts held that this law was not retroactive in its effect upon earlier legislation, but in i899 a law was passed authorizing the city to increase or diminish the amounts heretofore fixed by law to be paid to private charities. This virtually gives the cities and counties unlimited home rule in this matter. DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 75 More important than this, however, was another constitutional amendment, adopted in I894, which provided that no payments should be made by any city, county, or town, for any inmate of a private institution, who is not received and retained pursuant to rules established by the State board of charities. This action by the constitutional convention was to say in effect that there were serious evils to be remedied, and to refer the whole subject to the State board of charities, giving that body quasi-legislative authority to deal with the subject. The rule established by the State board in 1895, and continued with few changes to the present, has as their most important feature a provision to the effect that only inmates shall be paid for from public funds who are accepted as proper public charges by the local authorities charged with the relief of the poor. Such officers already had power to place children in institutions as public charges. This gave them power not to discharge children, but to discontinue the payment of public funds in any given case. Other provisions of the rules require detailed reports concerning each inmate to the State board of charities, compliance with the public health law, etc. The effects of the adoption of these rules, and of the measures taken by the State board and the local authorities for their enforcement, have been altogether wholesome, and have for a time at least held in check the previous tendencies. A review of the whole system shows that the number of children (destitute, neglected, and wayward, public and private charges) in institutions on September 30, 1875, nine months after the children's law took effect, was I4,773. This number steadily increased year by year until I894, when it reached 33,558. It is not possible to give separately the figures for delinquent children, since many of them are sent to the same institutions as the destitute and neglected, and separate statistics are not kept. Nor is it possible to give separate figures for those who are not public charges. This proportion is not large, however, and there is no reason to think that it varies 76 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS much from year to year. From September 30, 1894, to September 30, I897, the last date for which the statistics are at this time available, the number has decreased from 33,558 to 33,379; included in the latter figure are 423 children in institutions not hitherto reporting, making an actual decrease in the same institutions from I894 to 1897 of 602, notwithstanding an undoubted continual increase in the general population. The effect of the changes introduced in 1894 was most marked in New York city. Here the number of children in institutions receiving per capita allowances from the city increased steadily until I894. From 1890 to I894 there was an increase from 14,550 to 16,858. From I894 to 1897 there was a decrease from I6,858 to I5,50I. An analysis of the New York city figures shows that in institutions directly under the management of religious bodies the tendency to increase the census prior to I894 was most marked, and also that these institutions yield less readily to the restraining influences of the new constitution. The figures are as follows: INCREASE IN CENSUS FROM I890 TO 1894. Number. Per cent Catholic institutions...............................,640 I6.4 Protestant institutions................................ 98 6.5 Hebrew institutions................................... 470 30.8 2,308 15.8 DECREASE FROM 1894 TO I896. Number. Per cent. Catholic institutions.................................. 621 5.3 Protestant institutions............................ 507 15.6 Hebrew institutions............................... 323 I6.2 Another factor which promises to have a marked influence upon the situation is the co-operation established in 1898 between the charity organization society of New York city and the department of charities (boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx). The society is given an opportunity to examine all applications for the commitment of children by reason of destitution, and if it finds that the parents, or surviving parent, are DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 77 of good character and so situated that it is desirable that they should be enabled to keep their children, it secures for them the needed assistance in the form of clothing, groceries, fuel, etc., and places the family under the care of one of its district committees. This will undoubtedly reduce the numbers committed. The method of reception of children who are to become public charges was, prior to i884, generally by informal commitment by overseers or superintendents of the poor, or in cities by commissioners of charities. A number of institutions, under special laws, received per capita payments for children received at their own volition directly from parents. In i88i the penal code authorized the commitment of destitute, neglected, and wayward children by magistrates. This custom in New York city entirely superseded commitment by the charities department; in Brooklyn both systems were in use, but in other parts of the State the commitments were generally by poor law officers. In i894 a special law for Kings county required magistrates to refer applications for the commitment of children to the charities commissioner for investigation and report. A similar provision, but limited to destitute children, was included in the Greater New York charter, taking effect January I, i898. The custom of informal commitment by the charities commissioners was resumed in New York city in i897. The present tendency is toward the commitment of destitute children by the poor law officers, and of neglected and wayward children by magistrates. The State board of charities is the only body which is authorized by law to inspect the private institutions for children, and this body has done so regularly only in very recent years. It is not difficult, however, to secure permission to visit, through the courtesy of those in charge. There is no doubt that some of the private institutions are admirably managed and that most of them are at least fairly satisfactory as to the care and education of the children. Naturally there is great 78 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS variation between different institutions, as each is under wholly independent control. Prior to I886 contagious ophthalmia was very common, and many cases of blindness resulted, but in that year a law was passed prescribing minutely many matters relating to sanitation, examination and isolation of new cases, cubic air space in dormitories, distance between beds, etc. One notable instance of an institution organized to care for children under public allowances, which was managed for the personal benefit of one family, and in which the inmates suffered almost every form of neglect and cruelty, was discovered. Through the efforts of the State board of charities, and the health and charities departments of New York city, the institution was abolished in 1897. It has seemed necessary to consider the New York system at length, because of its exceptional character and the large number of children supported in institutions in that State (from one-quarter to one-third of the entire juvenile institutional population of the United States), and because it is so complicated that it would be impossible in any less space to make clear the essential character and tendencies of the system. CALIFORNIA. California has a system somewhat similar to that of New York, except that the payments are exclusively from the State treasury, and there is no official control over the admission or retention of the children. State appropriations to orphan asylums and homes for the aged have been customary ever since the admission of California into the Union in 1850. Section 22 of article iv. of the present constitution of California, adopted in I879, prohibits the State from making appropriations to private charities, except "institutions for orphans, half-orphans, or abandoned children, or aged persons in indigent circumstances." The constitution also provides that whenever any city, county, or town shall provide for the support of orphans, half-orphans, or abandoned children, it DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 79 shall be entitled to receive from the State the same pro rata appropriation as may be granted to institutions under church or other control. The statutes of i880, still in force, provide that every institution in the State, conducted for the care of orphan, half-orphan, or abandoned children, shall receive from the State treasury the sum of $ioo per year for each orphan child, and $75 per year for each half-orphan or abandoned child, provided that abandoned children must have been in the institution at least one year. The statute provides that children over fourteen years of age, or for whose specific support the sum of $i0 per month or more was paid, should not be included under the act; also that no institution with less than twenty inmates should be included. In i883 the act was amended so as to include foundlings and other abandoned infants, for whom the State is to pay $I2 per month, until they reach the age of eighteen months, after which the payments are to be at rates above mentioned. The provision requiring a census of twenty is declared to mean, in connection with infant asylums, twenty admissions per year. California has thus, in effect, told the private charities to take care of as many children as they like and for as long a time as they like, and the State will pay the bills Statistics in regard to the operation of the California system are not so complete as in New York, but they show a steady increase in the number of children supported, or partly supported, by the State, and that the appropriations to counties form a small portion, about ten per cent, of the total appropriations for the support of children. About thirty-five institutions receive State aid. The number of children supported, and the amounts paid by the State at various periods during the past fifteen years are as follows: Children. Amount. First half of 1885...........................3,393 $119,897 75 First half of i890............................... 4,723 142,894 00 First half of 1895............. 5,680 170,321 53 First half of i898................ 6,756 205,022 02 80 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS Of the total appropriations in 1889 the protestant and nonsectarian institutions received twenty-nine per cent, the hebrew institutions three per cent, and the catholic sixty-eight per cent, the proportions being somewhat similar to those in New York. The numbers of each of the different classes of children in 1885 and in I898 are as follows: Increase. 1895. 1898. Per Cent. Orphans............................ 775 862 II Half-orphans................................. 2,217 5,I6o 133 Abandoned children.......................... 294 536 83 Foundlings................................... I07 198 85 Total................................... 3,393 6,756 99 This increase is undoubtedly disproportional to the growth of population (which from I880 to I890 was forty-two per cent). The steady increase in these appropriations has aroused considerable sentiment in favor of a change in the system. The State controller, in his report for the two years ending June 30, 1898, speaking of these appropriations, said: "I believe some steps must be taken to reduce this expenditure. Either the law must be repealed, or the amount now appropriated must be reduced. I am not of a mind to recommend the former, but earnestly commend the latter to your consideration." The governor's message in January, I899, however, stated that, " In view of the recommendations of the controller to change the laws relating to orphans and half-orphans, because of the large amounts expended therefor, I desire to call the attention of this legislature to the fact that in the past we have expended large sums for much less worthy purposes. In this connection I desire to state that we should extend the period for which orphans and half-orphans are cared for, from fourteen to sixteen years of age. There should not be any reduction in the sum allowed for the maintenance of these children." The divided sentiment of the State is thus clearly manifest. As a first step toward a reform of the system, a bill was DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 81 passed by the legislature of I899 for the creation of a State board of charities with general advisory and visitorial powers, but it was vetoed by the governor. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. The subsidy or contract system has had a most interesting history in the District of Columbia. In 1832 congress gave a tract of land valued at $Io,ooo to each of the two then existing orphan asylums, one being non-sectarian and one catholic. Neither of these institutions has to this date received any other aid from the government. In 1867 an appropriation of $5,ooo was made to the home for soldiers and sailors' orphans, for maintenance. These appropriations were continued, and gradually the private contributions decreased. From 1874 congress also reduced its aid and the institution after struggling for some years was disbanded and the property turned over to the Garfield memorial hospital association. Since 1869 congress has appropriated yearly from $5,000 to $24,500 to the home for destitute colored women and children. In I872 $20,000 was appropriated to St. Rose's industrial school, and from I887 to I899 an anuual appropriation was made to it for maintenance. In 1875 an abandoned almshouse was given over to the industrial home school, and since I879 the institution has received a yearly appropriation for maintenance. Private contributions decreased, and from i885 to I896 the institution was practically dependent upon federal aid. In I896 the private corporation was dissolved and a board of trustees, appointed by public authority, placed in charge. In 1877, 1879, I881, I887, and I893, other institutions were added to the list receiving public aid. The increasing amounts of such appropriations, and the difficulty experienced by the legislators in finding any satisfactory principle by which to determine what amounts should be given, led to an agitation for a change, which resulted in I890 in the creation of the office of superintendent of charities. 6 82 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS It was the duty of the superintendent to study the situation, make recommendations as to specific appropriations, and also as to changes in the general plan. The first superintendent, Prof. Amos G. Warner, appointed by President Harrison, became convinced within a year that the subsidy or contract system could not be reformed, but must be abolished. As a step in this direction, the board of children's guardians was created in i892 as a public body, appointed by the judges of the district, to act for the district in its care of destitute children. The first agent of this board was called to that position from the post -of State agent of the Minnesota State public school for dependent children. All grants to private institutions were reduced forty per cent, and this amount was given to the board for its work. All children becoming dependent upon the public were to be committed to the guardianship of this board, which might place them at board in institutions or in families, or in free homes in families. Meanwhile, with the advent of the Cleveland administration in I893, a superintendent of charities favorable to the subsidy system was appointed. Strong opposition to the board of children's guardians arose; its appropriation was diminished by nearly one-half; and several of the subsidies were restored in whole or in part. These conditions continued for three years, during which time, notwithstanding all the unfavorable circumstances, the work of the board increased in efficiency and proved its humane and economical value. At the end of this period a " joint select committee " of both houses of congress made an extended investigation of the whole subject, and presented a voluminous report which was, on the whole, extremely favorable to the public board of children's guardians. With the advent of the McKinley administration, the agent of the board of children's guardians was appointed as superintendent of charities, in which position his influence has naturally tended to strengthen the board -of children's guardians and to further restrict the subsidy system. In DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 83 1897, the house of representatives passed a bill abolishing the subsidy system, but the senate forced a partial compromise. The same occurred in 1898, in each case the powers of the children's guardians being strengthened and its appropriations increased, while the number of private institutions receiving grants was reduced. The present tendency is clearly toward the abolition of the subsidy plan, but, judging from the past, the results may depend somewhat upon the election returns of November, 1900. OTHER STATES. The only other State in which the system of public support in private institutions can be said to be the prevailing one is Maryland. Here the State appropriates gross amounts, a total of about $20,000 per year, to eight or ten private institutions, and the city of Baltimore also makes appropriations of gross amounts amounting to about $12,000 per year to some six institutions. Under the new charter taking effect in 900o, a city board of supervisors of charities is created and given important powers as to admission, transfer and discharge of children who are to be public charges in private institutions. Oregon also makes appropriations in gross amounts to some six private institutions, a total amount of $26,000 per year, and destitute children are placed in these institutions by county officials. In Pennsylvania the State appropriates gross amounts to a considerable number of children's homes, hospitals, and other institutions. These appropriations have increased from $Io,ooo given to one institution in 1875-I876 to $Io3,700 given to fourteen institutions in 189I-I892. The institutions receiving these grants, however, do not as a rule receive destitute children from public officials, who in most parts of the State co-operate with the children's aid society. The subsidy system is not the controlling factor in the public care of children in this State, but if it continues to develop, it is likely to give rise to serious disturbances in the present system. Its growth has doubtless 84 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS been greatly restricted by a constitutional provision prohibiting State appropriations to sectarian institutions. In Delaware the State makes appropriations of gross amounts to two institutions, and one county, containing the city of Wilmington, also gives aid in gross amounts to four institutions. North Carolina grants aid in gross amounts to two institutions, which, however, decline to receive children from almshouses. One county, Buncombe, has organized a children's home as a public institution. Maine makes appropriations of gross amounts to several private institutions which receive some children from almshouses. The women's Christian temperance union of this State is active in placing children from almshouses in families. Milwaukee has an interesting history in regard to subsidies. Although Wisconsin has a State school to which Milwaukee contributes its share of taxation, this city continued until 1897 to board its destitute children in a number of private institutions. In 1897, on account of the increasing expense and the undue retention of the children in the private institutions, this plan was discontinued, and the county established a children's home, under the direction of a board of trustees of four members, appointed by the chairman of the board of supervisors. In response to an inquiry as to why the county established this institution, instead of sending the children to the State institution, a competent authority writes: " The State school receives no children under three years of age, and only those of sound mind and body. The county had many ineligible under the second heading, and also a number for whom only temporary shelter was needed." The city had been supporting 300 children in private asylums. When the county home was opened and notice was sent to the asylums to transfer the children thither, only a very few children, all of whom were defective, were sent, the asylums preferring to keep the children at their own expense. The DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 85 county home, with a capacity of I25, has never been fully occupied. After it had been open about one year it had some seve~nty inmates. During the next six months, by placing out some children and by returning others to their parents, the number was reduced to thirty; so that the city is now supporting about one-tenth of the number who were public charges under the former plan. New Hampshire, not enjoying the distinction of having more children in almshouses in i890 in proportion to its population than any other State in the Union, passed a law in i895 directing the local authorities to place destitute children in orphan asylums, homes, or private families, and, as soon as practicable, to find permanent homes for them and make contracts for their education and support during minority, which contracts are subject to approval or rescission by the State board of charities, created by the same statute. Under this law, all the children, except a few who were defective, were removed to asylums or families. An effort to repeal the law was made by the local authorities in I897, but the result was simply that the law was made more drastic and the powers of the State board of charities increased. It was directed to visit the homes and families in which all such children were placed, and to assist the county and town officials in securing homes for the children. As might be expected there is a marked tendency to place the children in institutions rather than in families. Although there were but i84 children between two and sixteen years of age in almshouses in i890, there were already on November I, i898, 392 children between the ages of three and fifteen, supported in children's homes or private families; none except defective children remained in almshouses. It would seem that New Hampshire, while justly entitled to great praise for removing the children from almshouses, might well study the experiences of New York and California. In Tennessee, four or five 'tounties make per capita appropriations to private institutions for the support of children. 86 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS Doubtless there are other instances of State, county or municipal appropriations to children's institutions not included in the above, but if so, they are of limited amounts and do not amount to a general system for the care of children in any State. ADVANTAGES. The advantages claimed for this plan are: a. That it removes the whole matter from the influences of partisan politics and the dangers of the spoils system. To most persons who favor the contract system, excepting those who do so because of the importance they attach to sectarian influences, this consideration is doubtless the prevailing one. The thought of entrusting the lives and the training of young children to men who may be drawn from the ranks of "ward heelers " is justly alarming to all thoughtful citizens. As we have indicated, however, in our consideration of State systems, experience does not show that State institutions for children have suffered largely from political influences. It has also to be borne in mind that even private institutions which are largely dependent upon the public for support are not wholly removed from political influences, and that public appropriations to private charities have more than once proved to be the source of serious political evils. b. That it enlists the interest of public spirited and benevolent citizens, who as managers of the institutions or otherwise connected therewith will visit them frequently, give careful attention to their administration, and in many cases take an active interest in the welfare of individual children. There is some truth in this claim, though many of these citizens would be equally interested, and perhaps more so, if the institutions received no public aid. Nor are State institutions lacking in power to attract the interest and elicit the active efforts of some of the best citizens in their communities. DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 87 c. That the removal of the children from all connection with poor law administration and public officials saves them from being known in the community as "pauper children." This is clearly a great advantage as compared with the almshouse system or any system in which the children are kept in institutions in any way connected with almshouse administration. This claim does not hold, however, in comparison with the State public school system. It may fairly be questioned whether the attitude of the community toward the children in the State public schools is not distinctly more favorable than towards those in orphan asylums, protectories, and other similar institutions. d. That it is economical. It is claimed that private institutions are more economically, not to say honestly, managed than public ones, and that the per capita allowance made by the public authorities is distinctly less than would be required to support the children in public institutions. DISADVANTAGES. It is urged against the subsidy system: a. That it encourages parents to throw their children upon the public for support, because they naturally have much greater confidence in private institutions, especially when managed by persons of their own religious faith and vouched for by their spiritual advisors. This tendency is further strengthened by the fact that this plan creates a large number of institutions, scattered throughout the State, thus permitting children to be kept near their former homes and subject to frequent visitation by their parents. While this is an advantage in caring for children whose parents should be encouraged to visit them, it is a decided disadvantage in dealing with those who' should be separated from their parents during their entire childhood. b. That it removes all incentive for keeping the number in the institutions small, either by careful sifting of applications 88 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS for admission or by maintaining an active placing-out system. This is especially true under the per capita system when the per capita payment nearly or quite equals, or even exceeds, the cost of maintenance. This tendency, with the one previously mentioned, results in a constant increase in the number of children in institutions, increasing the public burden indefinitely, and subjecting large numbers of children to the unnatural influences of institutional life, when they might better be cared for by their own parents or placed out in families for adoption. The history of the contract system in New York, California, and elsewhere, proves that it is exceedingly difficult, though we are not ready to say that it is impossible, to restrain these tendencies. c. The contract or subsidy system makes proper classification of children difficult. If the institutions were all under one management, it would be easy to distribute the inmates among them on some rational classification, which would aid in securing their proper mental and moral training. This is next to impossible when each institution is a law unto itself. One of the most serious and persistent evils of the New York system is the mingling of destitute, neglected, and delinquent children in the same institutions. This is so obviously contrary to every sound principle, both of charitable relief and of reformatory treatment, that one can but wonder that it continues to exist and to find strenuous supporters among some of the New York institutions. d. It is also urged that the subsidy system tends to produce relations between the State and sectarian institutions which are contrary to the spirit of our government and which diminish the separation between church and State. d. THE BOARDING-OUT AND PLACING-OUT SYSTEM. Massachusetts and Pennsylvania have systems of caring for destitute children which differ from all the preceding, in that the children are boarded in private families until permanent DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 89 free homes in families are found for them. The two States differ radically in that the former does the work directly through its own officials, while the latter works through a private society, the children's aid society of Pennsylvania. It will be remembered that the opening of the last quarter of the century found Massachusetts with her State juvenile paupers collected in the State primary school at Monson, except that some seventy-five remained at the State almshouse at Tewksbury, and a less number at the third State almshouse, now called the State farm, at Bridgewater. There was also a State visiting agency charged with the supervision of about a thousand children placed out in families from the State primary school and the two State reformatories. The various cities and towns cared for their poor, adult and juvenile, as they chose. In 1879 the State work was reorganized, the State primary school and the State reform schools being placed under a board of trustees, and the visiting agency was abolished, its duties being assigned to the State board of health, lunacy, and charity, which board was also given general supervision over all the State charitable institutions, hospitals for the insane, and the reform schools just mentioned. In 1882 the custom of boarding out a few children from the State primary school was begun. In that year legislation was enacted for the commitment to the custody of the State board of neglected children (between three and sixteen years of age) by the courts. In the following year legislation was enacted for the commitment to the board of infants under three years of age by overseers of the poor. All these children were, as a rule, placed temporarily in the State primary school, and later placed out in families with or without board. From time to time laws have been enacted extending the classification of children committed to the custody of the State board of charities. In I880 a law was enacted for the commitment of foundlings to their care. These children were, after I884, placed directly in families at board. Gradually, as the boarding-out 90 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS and placing-out systems developed, it was found possible to decrease the numbers remaining in the State primary school. In 1876 this institution sheltered 485 children; on September 30, I894, the number had been reduced to 121. The number of children boarded in families had meanwhile increased to 582, and the number self-supporting in families to 1,459. By 1894 the State board of charities had placed so many children from the State primary schools in families that the abolition of the school was possible, and in 1895, at the suggestion of the trustees of State institutions, the buildings were given over to the State to be used as a hospital for epileptics, most of the remaining children being placed in families at board. Since that date Massachusetts has cared for its destitute and neglected children who are State charges wholly in families, and boarding places have been secured for a few of the younger children committed to the reform schools. Notwithstanding the new classes of children who have been added to the State list, the number of children maintained at State expense has increased only from 1,142 in 1876 to 1,634 in I898, including, in both years, inmates of reform schools, while the number of children under the supervision of the State, but self-supporting in families, increased from I,ooo in I876 to 1,645 in 1898. The percentage of juvenile State charges in institutions, in free homes, and in boarding homes, in 1876 and in I898, are as follows:1 1876. 1898. Per cent. Per cent. In institutions.......................................... 5I 5 In families without board............................... 47 55 In families with board.................................. 2 30 In the city of Boston, destitute and neglected children were maintained in 1875 at the house of industry (almshouse and workhouse) on Deer island, except that the older pauper boys were in one wing of the house of reformation. Although probably not in actual association with adult paupers, the fact that 1 This whole matter is very clearly set forth in a chart opposite page 41 of the nineteenth annual report of the state board of lunacy and charity. DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 9I they were on the same island and under the same authorities, associated the two classes in the public mind. In 1877 a distinct advance was made by the removal of the boys to what had been the Roxbury almshouse, but which now became the Marcella street children's home. On March i, 1878, there were 618 children under the care of the city - 160 " pauper children," I28 neglected children, I20 truants, and 2Io juvenile offenders. In 1881 another advance was made by removing to a building near the Marcella street home, and thereafter reckoned as a part of it, the pauper and neglected girls from Deer island - the final separation, territorially, of destitute children from pauper adults in Boston, although they remained under the same administrative control until June, 1897, when the children were placed under the control of a board of seven unpaid trustees. About 1889, the city also began to board out the younger children, especially infants. Agents were employed also for finding free homes for children. On January 31, 1898, there were 420 children under supervision by the city children's department in free homes, and 325 in boarding homes. On the same date there were only I60 children in the Marcella street home, the number having been reduced from 321 earlier in the year, by the extension of the placing-out and boarding-out systems. Later in the year, in November, 1898, the Marcella street home was discontinued altogether, the children being placed out in families. Thus by a natural development of the institutional and placing-out systems, side by side, the city of Boston, in 1898, followed the example of the State, which, four years earlier, had abandoned its State primary school, both city and State thus arriving by gradual stages at the plan of caring for all destitute and neglected children in family homes. The parental (truant) school, which had been differentiated from the house of reformation on Deer island in I877, was removed therefrom to West Roxbury in May, 1895, another step in classification. In the cities and towns of Massachusetts, other than Boston, destitute children are under the charge of overseers of the poor, 92 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS and are either kept in almshouses or placed in families to board, or in free homes, or boarded in institutions. Children can not be legally retained in an almshouse for a longer period than two months unless they are (I) under four years of age; (2) under eight years of age, with their mothers; or (3) so defective in body or mind as to render their retention in the almshouse desirable. In a few instances the children are cared for through the Boston children's aid society. The State board of charities is charged with the duty of visiting, at least once each year, children supported by cities and towns. If children are retained in almshouses contrary to law, the State board is authorized to remove them therefrom, and to charge the cost of their support to the town of their settlement. The number of children fully supported by public authorities in the State on March 3I, i898, was as follows: In alms- Elsewhere. houses. By the State...................................... 56 I,349 By the city of Boston.................................. is 461 By other cities and towns........................... 203 385 277 2,195 This State thus cares for one and a half times as many children as the cities and towns, including Boston. For some years the State board of charities has recommended that the system be unified and that all destitute and neglected children become wards of the State, supported from State funds, and under the control of the State board of charities. There was a considerable movement for making the State board of lunacy and charity a strictly supervisory body and for creating a State children's department, which should be known as the children's bureau, with trustees appointed by the governor, their work to be under the supervision of the State board of charity. This failed to pass the legislature, and the executive care of the children in the State board's custody or care remains without supervision by any independent board. On July I, i898, the DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 93 State board reorganized its work by abolishing its previous departments of indoor and outdoor poor, and creating a superintendent of State adult poor and a superintendent of State minor wards, thus collecting all children in its custody under one administrative control. PENNSYLVANIA. Pennsylvania, when the " children's law " was passed in i883, left the local authorities to provide for the children as best they might. Although the State subsidizes many private institutions, it does so on the general ground that they are doing good and presumably preventing persons from becoming public charges, and not because the institutions receive and care for public dependents. The county system of poor relief prevails in some forty-nine counties, the town system in eighteen of the most sparsely settled counties. By a happy coincidence, there had been organized, a year before the passage of the children's law, the progressive children's aid society of Pennsylvania, which at once offered to assist the local authorities in caring for their children. In many of the counties, including the large cities, this offer was accepted, and the resulting plan may, with exceptions noted later, be regarded as the Pennsylvania system. The children's aid society has at no time in its history conducted an institution, but has relied wholly upon the boarding-out and placing-out systems, except for feeble-minded or persistently vicious children, or for those needing hospital treatment. The co-operation with the city and county of Philadelphia has been its most important work. The destitute children who are accepted as public charges by an agent of the charities department, are either sent directly to the societies office, or sent for not more than sixty days to the children's asylum across the road from the almshouse. They are placed at board in families, selected by the society, and nearly always in the country. The city pays the society $2 per week for their care while boarding. The society pays the families from $I.75 to $2.50 per week, 94 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS besides furnishing clothing, medical attendance, and other expenses. While boarding, the children are visited by an agent of the city department and by the society's agents, both of which endeavor also to find free homes for such of the children as are not soon to be returned to their parents. Catholic children are, however, generally sent to catholic institutions, the city agent retaining control of them and returning them to parents or relatives, or placing them in free homes, as circumstances warrant. Under this plan the number of children supported by the city has remained very small; in fact, being very little in excess of the number of children in the almshouse seventy-five years ago. On May 22, 1826, there were I45 children in the children's asylum at the aimshouse; on July I, I899, the city was supporting eighty-three children in private families and Ioo in institutions. The cost to the city is proportionately slight, and the children in free or boarding homes are undoubtedly under the most favorable circumstances for their development. That the system thus outlined has been most humane and beneficent in its effect upon the children under its care is undoubted. That it has reduced the public expenditure to a minimum is also true. The element of weakness in the plan, regarded as a system for the State, is that it is dependent upon voluntary co-operation between the local officials in sixty-three counties and a private society - or rather several societies, since the original society has divided into several branches, the parent society remaining by far the largest and most active. This renders it impossible to secure a uniformly efficient system in all parts of the State. Two counties built children's homes under the control of their poor law authorities, two others board out their children under their own care, while eleven counties place their children in institutions with per capita payment for their care until free homes are found. Even Philadelphia places its catholic children in institutions, and for the last three or four years has placed nearly half of its protestant children in a children's home instead DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 95 of in families under the care of the children's aid society. Admirable as the co-operation between the children's aid society and certain of the counties has been, it does not cover the State as a whole, and, it is to be feared, lacks the elements of authority and permanence.' NEW JERSEY. In New Jersey, until I899, destitute children were city and town charges and were provided for, either by being kept in the almshouses, as they were to the number of about 500, or by being placed in families by indenture, or by being placed in private institutions at a per capita rate, the latter plan, however, not being used extensively. In I895 the governor oppointed a commission to investigate the subject, which commission reported to the legislature of 1897 a bill for the creation of a State board of children's guardians. The bill failed of passage in I897, but became a law in I899. The governor appoints a board of seven persons, to whose custody all children becoming public charges are committed. The children are to be placed in families at board until free homes can be found. The board of the children is, however, to be paid by the counties from which the children come. It is too early to report upon the operations of this act, but they will be followed with great interest by all students of the subject. OTHER STATES. The States of Illinois and Missouri, notwithstanding their large cities, have been singularly backward in making any public provision for destitute and neglected children. Neither State forbids the retention of children in almshouses. In Illinois the poor, including children, are a county charge, and children are kept in almshouses, placed directly in families, placed in the care of placing-out societies with a per capita allowanceusually $50- for expenses of placing out, or, especially in 1The work of the children's aid society for other than public charges will be alluded to later. 96 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS Cook county (Chicago), placed in private institutions, being paid for by a per capita rate. The number of children so supported is not large, owing, perhaps, to constitutional limitation of such appropriations. An unsuccessful effort was made in 1888 to secure the establishment of a State public school for dependent children. Conditions are much the same in Missouri, except that many destitute children are sent to the reform school maintained by the city of St. Louis. In the States not already mentioned in this chapter there are no public systems of caring for destitute children except outdoor relief, almshouses, and occasional placing out in families either directly or through a placing-out society. This list includes the following States: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming. VI- NEGLECTED CHILDREN. The statutes in force prior to the opening of the nineteenth century indicate that children rarely became the subjects of public care except because of the poverty of their parents, or their own wrongdoing. The statutes of Massachusetts did, indeed, in a special poor law, passed in 1735 for the city of Boston, because that town had " grown considerably populous and the idle and poor much increased among them," provide that when persons "were unable, or neglected to provide necessaries for Wr the sustenance and support of their children," such children might be bound out by the overseers, and that " where persons bring up their children in such gross ignorance that they do not know, or are not able to distinguish, the alphabet, or twenty-four letters, at the age of six years," the overseers might bind out such children to good families "for a decent and christian education." We have no knowledge as to how many children were actually bound out under this remarkable statute. Numerous instances are found in the statutes of DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 97 various States from I790 to I825, authorizing the binding out, or commitment to almshouses, of children found begging on the streets, or whose parents were beggars. A general statute v to this effect was passed in New York in i824. From about I825 there came a more and more general recognition and practical application of the principle that it is the right and duty of the public authorities to intervene in cases of parental cruelty, or gross neglect seriously endangering the health, morals, or elementary education of children, and to remove the children by force if necessary, and place them under surroundings more favorable for their development. Such action, prompted by philanthropic instincts, finds justification in the fact that neglected childhood is a danger to the State. Step by step statutory authority has been gained for the rescue of neglected children; the definition of the term has been made more and more precise, and at the same time inclusive; agencies have been created for the enforcement of these laws; and institutions established for the care of the children. The law amending the charter of New York city, passed in I833, provided that the mayor, recorder, or any two aldermen, or two special justices, might commit to the almshouse, or other suitable place, for labor and instruction, any child found in a state of want or suffering, or abandonment, or improperly exposed or neglected by its parents or other person having the same in charge, or soliciting charity from door to door, or whose mother was a notoriously immoral woman. It is commonly supposed that these statutes were of much later origin. The Massachusetts law of i866 provided that children under sixteen years of age who, by reason of the neglect, crime, drunkenness, or other vices of parents, were suffered to be growing up without salutary parental control and education, or in circumstances exposing them to lead idle and dissolute lives, might be committed by the proper court to the, place designated for such purpose by the city. In i882 a law was passed providing for the commitment of neglected children, 7 98. 1. AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS between three and sixteen years of age, directly to the custody of the State board of charities. In 1877 New York passed a law, at the suggestion of the society for the prevention of cruelty to children, entitled an act for the protection of children and to prevent and punish certain wrongs of children, which was in part adapted from the industrial act of England. Subsequently, these provisions were embodied in the penal code, and have from time to time been extended. Statutes of somewhat similar character have been enacted in nearly all the States of the Union. One of the best is that of Michigan, passed in 1889. The sections describing the classes of children who may be committed, because of ill-treatment, to the State public school are drawn with great detail, and are among the most comprehensive that have found place in the statute books. In Michigan such cases are tried before the judges of probate. The care of neglected as well as destitute children has been a motive in the founding of many of the private and public child-saving agencies from the early part of the century. The juvenile reformatories, though established primarily for actual offenders and to prevent the commitment of such to prisons with adults, received also neglected and destitute children, and their charters in many cases authorized the commitment of such children to them. The fifth annual report of the New York house of refuge, 1830, says: "The legislature has very much enlarged the objects of our institution. * * * If a child be found destitute; if abandoned by its parents, or suffered to lead a vicious or vagrant life; or if convicted of any crime, it may be sent to the house of refuge." We have already noted that early in the seventies neglected children were being committed to the pauper institutions of Boston. Separate statistics of the pauper and neglected children have been kept by Boston from that time to the present. The State schools for dependent children, though originally established for destitute children, DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 99 have at later dates been authorized to receive neglected children. In New York the penal code, enacted in I880, authorized the commitment of various classes of neglected children to "any incorporated charitable or reformatory institution." SOCIETIES FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO CHILDREN. The enforcement of laws for the rescue of neglected children, as well as the enactment of further legislation, received a great impetus from the organization of societies for the prevention of cruelty to children, the first of which was established in New York city in I875. Curiously enough, societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals were in existence for eight years: before similar societies for the protection of children were or-', ganized. The American society for the prevention of cruelty to animals was organized in New York city in 1866; similar societies followed in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania in I868, in Maryland and Illinois in I869, and in several other cities in I87I. The New York society for the prevention of cruelty to children was organized in January, I875, and incorporated in April, 1875, under a general law passed that year for the incorporation of such societies. Other societies followed in the order named: I875, Rochester. 1876, Portsmouth. 1876, San Francisco. I877, Philadelphia. 1878, Boston. 1878, Baltimore. I879, Buffalo. I879, Wilmington, Del. I88o, Brooklyn. I88o, Richmond county, N. Y. In some cities, societies originally incorporated for the protection of animals added to their objects the protection of children. In others, new societies, often called humane societies, were organized for both purposes. The total number of societies in the United States in 900o devoted exclusively to the 'TOO AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS protection of children, or to the protection of both children and animals, is 157.' In i877 the societies for the protection of animals organized the American humane association, which holds an annual convention for the discussion of topics relating to the prevention of cruelty. Societies for the protection of children were admitted to this association in I887. The primary work of these societies has been that of investigating cases of alleged cruelty or neglect, and the presentation of the facts to the courts, authorized to consider such cases. In New York, but not elsewhere, so far as known, unless in exceptional cases, the society for the prevention of cruelty to children has, in its co-operation with the courts, included also the investigation of cases of destitution. The New York society has had an exceptional history. Its first annual report stated that there were already in existence many institutions and societies for the care of children, but that it was not their business to seek out and to rescue children whose lives were rendered miserable by constant abuse and cruelty. The laws for the prevention of cruelty to children were considered ample, but it was nobody's business to enforce the laws. To this task the new society addressed itself. In addition to seeking to discover cases of cruelty and neglect, it stationed agents in all the magistrates' courts, to investigate all cases involving children, whether for destitution, neglect, cruelty, or waywardness. Through these agents it has advised the magistrates, not only as to whether-commitnoent should be made, but as to what institutions the children should be committed to. Subsequently, the children were placed under the care of the society pending investigation, and the agents of the society were given the powers of police officers. Though the power to discharge the children was vested in the managers of " the institutions, they, often regarding the society for the prevention of cruelty to children as the real authority through 1 See list in report of New York society for the prevention of cruelty to children, I899. DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN IOI which the children had been sent to them, usually did not discharge the children either to their parents or by adoption, or indenture, without consulting the society, and in some cases took no action in reference to discharge until so requested by the society. This society thus became, by I890, the factor V which actually controlled the reception, care, and disposition of destitute, neglected, and wayward children in New York city, thus practically controlling the lives of an average number of about fifteen thousand children, and an average annual expenditure for their support of more than one and one-half million dollars. Its influence has done more to strengthen and perpetuate the subsidy system, as it existed prior to I894, than any other one factor. Since additional powers have been conferred upon the charities commissioners by the State board of charities, acting under the revised constitution, the activities of the society, so far as destitute children are concerned, have been somewhat restricted. These societies have, in a number of large cities, provided temporary shelters for children coming under their care. As a rule the societies have been at first supported wholly by private funds, but latterly the societies in New York, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Brooklyn, and probably other cities, have received some aid from public sources. The influence of the " cruelty " societies as a whole has been ) in favor of the care of children in institutions rather than by placing them in families. So far as known, none of the societies have undertaken the continued care of the children rescued by them, but all have turned them over to the care of institutions or societies incorporated for the care of children. By a vigorous enforcement of the laws authorizing the commitment of vagrant, begging, and various other classes of exposed children, they have very largely increased the numbers of children becoming wards of public or private charity. Usually they have not co-operated to any extent with placing-out societies, perhaps because of being continually engaged in breaking up fam 102 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS ilies of bad character, but have rather become the feeders of institutions, both reformatory and charitable. The New York society during I899 placed fifteen children in homes or situations; during the same period 2,II3 children were, upon its recommendation, committed to institutions. Constantly occupied with questions involving the custody of children, they have not unnaturally preferred to place the children rescued by them within the walls of institutions, where possession is at least nine points of the law, rather than trust to a measure of uncertainty necessarily involved in the placing-out system. Without detracting from the great credit due to such societies for the rescue of children from cruel parents or immoral surroundings, it must be said that their influence in the upbuilding of very large institutions, and their very general failure to urge the benefits of adoption for young children, have been unfortunate. Probably their greatest beneficence has been, not to the children who have come under their care, but to the vastly larger number whose parents have restrained angry tempers and vicious impulses though fear of the " cruelty." BOARDS OF CHILDREN'S GUARDIANS. As indicated by their name, the societies for the prevention of cruelty to children are private corporations; their boards of managers are independent of official appointment. In only one State have governmental bodies been created to perform the duties elsewhere assumed by these societies. In the State of Indiana, a law of I889 authorized the appointment of boards of children's guardians in townships (changed in 1891 to counties) having a population of more than seventy-five thousand. In 1893 the law was made applicable to counties having more than fifty thousand population, of which there are four in the State, in all of which such boards have been organized. Each board is composed of six persons, three of whom must be women; the members are appointed by the circuit court. The boards not only investigate cases of alleged cruelty and DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN I 03 -neglect, and bring such to trial, but also undertake the subsequent oversight of the children, placing them in temporary 'homes, managed directly by the boards, or in institutions managed by others, or in families. A bill introduced in i899 to make possible the appointment of such boards in counties having less than fifty thousand population failed of passage. VII - PRIVATE CHARITIES FOR CHILDREN, i875-I900. The development of private charities during the last quarter of the century has been variously affected in different States by the policies adopted by the public authorities for the care of children who are public charges. Where public institutions,especially State institutions, have been established four the care of children permanently separated from their parents., the private charities have gradually turned their attention to the tempor-ary care of children, or to the care of some special class of children not fully provided for by the public, or to the development-of special lines of instruction, emphasizing their educational rather than their charitable features. Where the subsidy plan has been adopted, the institutions wholly supported by private funds have usually ceased to be an important factor in the situation, and the subsidized institutions have increased in numbers and size, without much specialization in purpose. The plan tends to increase the number of institutions receiving about the same classes of children and caring for them by the same methods. A tendency to differentiation and specialization of private charities is undoubtedly better for the children and for the community. During the early part of the last. quarter of the century, children's institutions multiplied rapidly in all parts of the country. Forty were incorporated in New York alone in the fifteen years, I875-90. Since i8183 the consent of the State board of charities has been necessary for the incorporation of such institutions, and several needless and unworthy applic I04 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS tions have been denied. In Philadelphia, only nine new institutions were incorporated in the interval I875 to I893, the last date for which the figures are available. Four of the nine were under the charge of various protestant denominations. In Boston, some eleven institutions, none of them large, and all of them entirely supported by private funds, have been organized since I875. Several of these have recently employed placingout agents, or have established co-operation with the Boston children's aid society. The Massachusetts infant asylum, which at first received State aid, has for many years been supported wholly by private funds. Although exact statistics are not available, it seems certain that there has been a marked diminution in the number of new institutions organized during the last decade. CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETIES. This seems to be due largely to the influence of the agencies which have favored the placing-out system, and to the remarkable success which has attended that system in many States. The New York children's aid society has continued its placingout work to the present, though its co-operation with public authorities very greatly decreased after about I875, the principal reason being that inasmuch as the society declined to take into account the religious faith of the children in selecting homes, it met with violent opposition from many sources. The children placed out by it in recent years have been received largely through its lodging houses, or from protestant institutions, or from parents. One of the most influential of the placing-out societies has been the Boston children's aid society. The principal work of this society from 1863 to 1885 was the maintenance of an excellent farm school for wayward boys, known as Pine farm, with an oversight over the boys placed in families or returned to their parents, from this school. The report for I884 notes the need of an additional farm school, and also of sending some DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN I05 children directly to country homes. In 1886 a country home, in which a few boys had been boarded, was developed into a second farm school, and a third was established soon after. The girls under the care of the society were sent directly to families. The number of destitute and neglected children, not requiring even the training of the farm school, but who could be placed directly in private families, rapidly increased. Some of these children were placed in free homes, many received wages, and others were boarded in families. This society was among the first to develop a careful, systematic, and satisfactory plan for the investigation of the character and circumstances of families applying for children, and has exerted a powerful influence in raising the standards of placing-out work, not only in Massachusetts, but also in other States. On October I, I89I, 255 children were under the care of this society in families, sixty in the three farm schools, 168 in their own homes, and twenty-seven in institutions. In I892 one of the three farm schools was discontinued, one-third of its pupils being sent to the other farm schools, and the remainder, with one exception, placed in families. The report for I896 notes the closing of another of the farm schools, a step due partially to the fact that the location had become undesirable for the purpose, and also that additional provision had been made in other ways for this class of children. The report for I899 contains the final report of the third and last farm school, due partly to the smaller number of wayward boys coming under the care of the society and partly to other causes. The number of children under the care of the placing-out agency on October I, I899, was 289, of whom 132 were in boarding homes, 82 in free homes, 43 were receiving wages, and 32 were otherwise placed. There were also under supervision 360 other children, of whom 277 were in their own homes. The important work done by this society through its probation agency, Io6 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS its bureau of information, and its home libraries and other agencies for improving the condition of children in their own homes, does not fall within the scope of this paper. The co-operation of the children's aid society of Pennsylvania with public authorities has already been described. In addition to this it receives a large number of needy or semi-wayward children directly from parents, and some from magistrates, all of whom are supported by voluntary contributions, from which source the funds for the running expenses of the society are also met. This society has also worked out very careful plans for investigating applications for children, and for exercising oversight over placed-out children. The Henry Watson children's aid society of Baltimore also has strengthened its placing-out work, and extended its co-operation with institutions, during the past three years. A children's aid society organized in Rochester, in 1895, somewhat on the plan of the Philadelphia society, has done excellent work. A similar agency has been maintained by the Newburgh, N. Y., committee of the State charities aid association since 1893. OTHER PLACING-OUT SOCIETIES. In I885, a society called the American educational aid association, afterwards called the national children's home society, was organized, with an office in Chicago. Although placingout was not its original object, it found this field more attractive, and founded a number of State organizations for such work. The society soon became a loose federation of State organizations whose work differed greatly in character and merit. Societies were organized in some States already amply provided with placing-out agencies, and the character and methods of the promoters of the national organization were not always such as to commend themselves to thoughtful people. In some cases the State organizations passed into the hands of incompetent, if not untrustworthy, people. In other States much good has been accomplished and more careful methods DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN I07 have been introduced. The Illinois branch has recently been reorganized, and with the aid of its efficient secretary has done and will do much to improve the situation in that State. The work of the Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, and South Dakota branches has also been commended. The organization as a whole has done much to popularize the placing-out plan, and has created a public opinion in its favor which has had a favorable reflex action upon many public and-private institutions. The boys and girls' aid society of California was organized in San Francisco in I874 to undertake the work carried on so successfully by the New York children's aid society. It has, however, devoted most of its energies to the maintenance of a temporary home for children. In I885, a boys and girls' aid society was organized in Portland, Ore. This society has a temporary home for the reception of destitute and neglected children, from which they are placed out as soon as possible. During I899, 351 children were received, and the average period of residence in the home was only one month. A method akin to placing out, which has met much success in Boston for the past twenty years, and for shorter periods in Philadelphia, New York, and elsewhere, is that of placing homeless mothers of young children in situations in the country with their children. This avoids making either mother or child a charge -upon charity, gives the child the advantage of a mother's care, and the mother the moral benefit of keeping and caring for her child. In Boston this work has been carried on as an individual charity, in Philadelphia by the children's aid society, and in New York by the State charities aid association. CHILDREN'S COMMUNITIES. Among the institutions recently established and worthy of special note is the George junior republic at Freeville, Tompkins county, N. Y. The plan is that of organizing the children in a miniature republic, and thus teaching them the nature of io8 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS government and respect for law. There is also a special currency and a system of payment for services, and for living expenses, by which the children are taught the necessity of labor, and made to feel the effects of idleness. The experiment is of great value in demonstrating the extent to which such methods can be introduced in institutions. While not distinctly a reformatory institution, the children are mostly of a class who otherwise would be committed for correctional treatment. As an institution which has made a special and successful effort to give agricultural training, the McDonough farm school at McDonough, Md., should be mentioned. The Foulke and Long institute in Philadelphia has made special effort to provide training in domestic science to girls. The Williamson trade school, near Philadelphia, an endowed institution incorporated in I888. and opened several years later, is in many respects similar to Girard college. The Samuel Ready asylum for orphan girls, of Baltimore, opened in 1887, has an endowment of half a million dollars and valuable real estate. Admission is by competitive examination. The girls are kept until eighteen years of age, and are taught dressmaking, typewriting, bookkeeping, music, or other means of earning a livelihood. The Egenton female orphan asylum, also of Baltimore, opened in I880, receives an annual income of $Io,ooo from its endowment. It, too, aims to receive the more promising class of orphans, and to give them special training. It is about to move from the city to the country. A similar step is being taken by the Roman catholic orphan asylum of New York, which is the oldest of the Roman catholic institutions in New York, and is supported by private funds. The former site given by the city has, however, become extremely valuable, and will not only provide funds for new and better buildings, but will add to the endowment. The Cincinnati children's home, the Cleveland protestant orphan asylum, and, to a less degree, the Chicago orphan asylum, DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN I09 have laid special stress upon the temporary care of children and placing them in families at an early age. The Rose orphans' home at Terre Haute, Ind., and the Washburn memorial orphan asylum of Minneapolis have paid greater attention to institutional care. In Chicago there are now twenty-three homes and asylums for children supported by private donations, a large majority of which have been founded since I875. There are also in or near the city four " industrial schools," two for boys and two for girls, largely supported by public funds, and one foundling asylum. The number of institutions and homes for children founded by private enterprise and maintained by private charity is so large that it is not possible even to mention many excellent and notable institutions. Scarcely a city of any size in the whole United States is now without some organized effort in behalf of destitute children. CENSUS OF CHILDREN IN INSTITUTIONS. In connection with the census of I880, Mr. Frederick H. Wines prepared a list of homes for children in each State, with their census on June I, I880. This list of 613 institutions, with a total population of 50,579, appears in the International Record of Charities and Correction, March and April, I886, and a summary by States may be found in the proceedings of the national conference of charities and correction of that year. In the census of I890, the number of inmates of institutions for children, not including reformatories, is given by States but not by individual institutions. There is also a table giving the census of each benevolent institution in the United States, but it includes hospitals, homes for the aged, and other charities, as well as homes for children, and in many cases it is impossible to determine the purpose of the institution from its name. IIO AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS The following table, compiled from the census returns of I880 and I890, includes both public and private institutions, but does not include reformatories nor children in families: NUMBER OF CHILDREN IN CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES, AS SHOWN BY UNITED STATES CENSUS IN I880 AND 1890. No. of Institu- No. of children. tions. 1880. 1880. 1890. North Atlantic Division: Maine.............................. 6 New Hampshire........................... 5 Vermont................................... 2 Massachusetts............................. 45 Rhode Island............................... 7 Connecticut................................ 1 New York.............................. 127 New Jersey.............................. 20 Pennsylvania........................... 69 292 South Atlantic Division: Delaware.................................. 3 Maryland................................. 27 District of Columbia........................ II Virginia................................. 13 W est Virginia.............................. 2 North Carolina............................. 2 South Carolina............................ 7 Georgia................................... 13 Florida.................................... I 79 198 144 I76 3,463 319 466 18,624 1,049 7,339 30,778 II8 1,653 354 69 162 397 461 3,2 3,2i8 196 256 203 3,263 522 728 22,653 I,574 8,278 37,673 163 1,459 818 380 74 212 439 502 16 4,o63 North Central Division: Ohio...................................... Indiana.................................. Illinois.................................. Michigan................................. W isconsin................................ M innesota................................. Iow a....................................... M issouri................................. North Dakota.............................. South Dakota. Nebraska.................................. KNebraska..................... Kansas. 47 18 21 I4 12 5 3 24 I 4,149 5,970 915 1,762 1,453 2,703 747 1,144 656 1,II7 126 897 190 568 1,643 I,613...... III 55 I6I 9,934 I6,046 2 147 DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN III South Central Division: Kentucky................................... 8 950 819 Tennessee................................ Io 362 605 Alabama.................................. 5 226 340 Mississippi.............................. 3 49 I56 Louisiana................................... 20 1,991 1,682 Texas..................................... 4 206 473 6o 3,884 3,975 Western Division: Colorado........................................... 212 New Mexico............................... I...... 107 Nevada.................................... 2 187 49 Washington................................ 2...... 84 Oregon................................... 4 69 I05 California................................. 26 2,509 3,237 35 2,765 3,894 United States (totals)....................... 63 50,579 65,65I In view of the fact that in New York alone the number of children in institutions has increased to 35,000, the total census of children's homes in the United States in 900o may be conservatively estimated at from 8o,ooo to 85,000, or, including juvenile offenders (numbering 11,107 in I880, and I4,846 in I890), at ioo,ooo. We can only guess at the number of children who have been placed in families and now are (or ought to be) under the supervision of public authorities or public or private institutions or societies. If we were to venture an estimate we should place the number at not less than 5o,ooo. VIII- DELINQUENT CHILDREN, At the opening of the century there was not in existence in 7 the United States a single institution for the reformation of juvenile delinquents; children convicted of offences were committed to jails and prisons along with adult offenders. The history of juvenile reformation during the century may be epitomized in a sentence -the removal of youthful offenders to institutions apart from adults, and their treatment from an educational and reformatory, instead of a punitive, point of view. 112 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS NEW YORK CITY. The first institution for juvenile delinquents in this country (several were in existence abroad) was established in New York city. On December I6, 1817, several prominent citizens met at the New York hospital to consider the prevailing causes of pauperism. Two months later they organized the society for the prevention of pauperism. This society wisely considered, very early in its deliberations, the condition of the various city institutions, and in its second report, dated December 29, I8I9, attention was called to the fact that in the Bellevue prison, located on the same grounds as the almshouse and city hospital, no separation was made between mature and juvenile offenders. The report says -" Here is one great school of vice and desperation; with confirmed and unrepentant criminals we place these novices in guilt - these unfortunate children from ten to fourteen years of age, who from neglect of parents, from idleness, or misfortune, have been doomed to the penitentiary by condemnation of law." After asking, " And is this the place for reform?" the report makes a recommendation, which, though at that time a notable step in advance, would now raise a storm of indignation if proposed in any one of our forty-five States. It proposed the erection, at moderate expense, of a building, within the penitentiary enclosure, for the youthful convicts. The recommendation was not, however, carried into effect, and subsequent reports reiterated the folly of committing children to prison along with hardened offenders. The annual report of the society in 1823 was devoted almost wholly to this subject, and advocated the establishment of a house of refuge for juvenile offenders, after their discharge from prison. In June, 1823, upon the motion of Isaac Collins, afterward prominently connected with the Philadelphia house of refuge, a committee was appointed to prepare and report at a later meeting a detailed plan for a house of refuge - which DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 113 plan was submitted on December 19, 1823, at a public meeting. The purposes of the institution as outlined in this report were: I. To furnish, in the first place, an asylum in which boys under a certain age, who become subject to the notice of our police, either as vagrants, or houseless, or charged with petty crimes, may be received. * * * 2. The committee have no doubt that were such an institution once well established and put under good regulations, the magistrates would very often deem it expedient to place offenders in the hands of its managers, rather than sentence them to the city penitentiary. 3. A third class, which it might be very proper to transplant to such an establishment and distribute through its better divisions, are boys, some of whom are of tender age, whose parents, either from vice or indolence, are careless of their minds and morals, and leave them exposed in rags and filth to miserable and scanty fare, destitute of education, and liable to become the prey of criminal associates. 4. Youthful convicts, who on their discharge from prison, at the expiration of their sentence, finding themselves without character, without subsistence, and ignorant of the means by which it is to be sought, have no alternative but to beg or steal. 5. Delinquent females who are either too young to have acquired habits of fixed depravity, or those whose lives have in general been virtuous. The meeting decided to form a society for the reformation of juvenile delinquents, and $800 was subscribed for its purposes. The active workers in the society for the prevention of pauperism became members of the new society, and the old organization ceased to exist. The following March, I824, the society was incorporated by a special act of the legislature. Application was made to the city council for a grant of land, and a site containing about four acres, including the space now lying be8 114 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS tween Fifth and Madison avenues, from Twenty-third to Twenty-sixth streets, which had been ceded to the Federal government to be used as an arsenal, was transferred to the society for the sum of $6,ooo, of which $4,000 was subsequently remitted. This site was then about a mile from the outskirts of the city, and was surrounded by farms. Here, in the old soldiers' barracks, on January 21, 1825, the first institution for the reformation of juvenile delinquents in the United States was opened, six girls and three boys having been brought in by the police to be cared for. Immediately upon the opening of the institution the construction of a separate building for girls was begun, and it was dedicated on Christmas day, 1825. The State legislature had made an appropriation of $2,000 to the institution in 1825; in 1826 an act was passed, authorizing the institution to receive children from any city or county in the State, and providing that the commissioners of health should pay to the institution any surplus from their funds not required for the maintenance of the marine hospital. For the first five or six years contributions were taken up at the annual meetings, and collected from early subscribers, but after that time the receipts were wholly from public sources, State or municipal. It appears that very early in its history the plan of sending children to the west was in vogue. The daily journal kept by the superintendent contains the following entry for May Io, 1828: "We saw the eight boys for Ohio start in good spirits. * * * It excited considerable warm good feeling to see so many little fellows bound for such a good and suitable place from the house of refuge, among the passengers on board the steamboat." In an interesting report " On the penitentiary system in the United States," made by two French writers, Beaumont and de Tocqueville, who visited the United States in 1833, considerable space is devoted to the New York, Boston, and Philadelphia houses of refuge; the plan of the New York institution is com DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN I 15 mended, though the results as stated would not be considered very encouraging at the present time. The visitors made an inquiry as to the conduct of all the children who had left the refuge, and reported that, " Of 427 male juvenile offenders sent back into society, 85 have conducted themselves well, and the conduct of 41 has been excellent; of 34 the information received is bad, and of 24 very bad; of 37 among them the information is doubtful; of 24 rather good than otherwise, and of 14 rather bad than good. Of 86 girls who have returned into society, 37 have conducted themselves well; II in an excellent manner; 22 bad, and 16 very bad; the information concerning I0 is doubtful; 3 seem to have conducted themselves rather well, and 3 rather bad than otherwise. Thus of 513 children who have returned from the house of refuge in New York into society more than 200 have been saved from infallible ruin." By 1839, the growth of the city had reached the institution, and it was proposed to open Twenty-fifth street through its grounds. As a result this site was abandoned, and what had been known as the Bellevue fever hospital, with a block of ground between Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth streets, extending from First avenue to the East river, was given by the city for this purpose. On October I0, I839, the children were removed to the new institution. In the report of this year it is remarked that the children are retained for an average period of one year, at a per capita expense of $1.27 per week. Ten years later, in I848, the 355 inmates of the institution exceeded considerably its proper capacity, and a committee was appointed to consider the best mode of providing additional accommodations, and also of securing better classification. In I850 the committee reported in favor of a change of location, and an application was made to the State legislature for aid to erect two buildings. The city gave its consent to the sale of the property at Twenty-third street and East river and the use of the proceeds towards the purchase of another site. Ten and one-half acres of land on the west shore of Ward's island were AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS first purchased, but before steps were taken for its improvement an exchange was made with the city for thirty acres of rocky and marshy land on the south shore of Randall's island. The legislature appropriated $50,000 for the erection of new buildings, the corner-stone of which was laid November 24, 1852. In an address on this occasion one of the speakers stated, alluding to the " nursery for destitute children," maintained by the city on the same island, " We mean to be good neighbors, only we intend to compete with them in the supply of apprentices, and gain, if we can, the reputation of furnishing the most useful and best behaved children. Our formidable wall of enclosure will protect our children from the contamination of theirs, or vice versa, as the case may be." The sale of the Twenty-third street property realized nearly $175,000; the remainder of the total cost of $470,000 was met by the State. On the last day of October, I854, the inmates, 400 in number, were removed from Twenty-third street and East river to the Randall's island buildings, which the institution still occupies. This combination of city aid, State aid and private control now proves to be a serious embarrassment, since it has become desirable to remove to a country site, with larger opportunities for agricultural training and with buildings erected upon the cottage system. Though this institution was the pioneer in the field, and has always remained under the management of some of the most distinguished citizens of the metropolis, it did not continue to lead in the work which it had so nobly begun. During the last quarter of the century other institutions have taken the van in such improvements as the abandonment of the system of contract labor (which was strongly upheld by a manager of this institution at the national conference of charities and corrections in 1883); the abolition of the cell system; the introduction of industrial training for purposes of instruction; and the partial or complete abolition of corporal punishment. It is a singular fact that this institution, controlled by a private DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN I I corporation, the managers of which have always been among the most respected citizens of New York, has failed to keep pace, in these directions, with other institutions, many of which are controlled by managers appointed by governors of States, or other public authorities. BOSTON. The second juvenile reformatory in the United States was a strictly municipal institution; the house of reformation for juvenile offenders, established by the city of Boston, in I826, and located in a portion of the building of the house of correction for adult offenders. In 1837 it was removed to a separate building, but still near the house of correction. In I840 a committee was appointed to consider the wisdom of having both boys and girls in the one institution. Dr. Samuel G. Howe reported for the committee and in favor of separation. He was of the opinion that "the number of happy cases of reformation may be increased by (i) placing children with virtuous families in the country as soon as possible after their committal, and without waiting even for them to be taught to read and write in the house" (this he did not consider practicable in all cases), and (2) "by so administering the house that there shall be more classification." The decision in favor of the removal of the girls was complied with, but in the following year, on the recommendation of the superintendent, who believed that he " could reform boys and girls, too, in the same house," they were readmitted. During the early years of its existence the house of reformation was the subject of much discussion, suffering almost equally from ill-considered praise and from unmerited odium. It was the subject of frequent changes of government and of organization. By some it was regarded as so desirable a school for boys that parents endeavored to have their children placed there without legal or just cause. Again, it was represented as a prison of severe character, and unceasing efforts were made II8 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS to procure the discharge of boys even when committed for serious offences. In 1841, on account of various criticisms which had led the courts to commit but few children, the abandonment of the institution was proposed, a large part of the buildings being unoccupied. It was at this time that the institution was placed under the control of the directors of the house of industry. In 1846 we learn that, during the preceding two years, the older boys had been employed by contractors at light shoe-making, which had yielded a revenue of nearly $I,ooo a year. In 1851 the commitment of truants to the house of reformation was authorized; a few years later the managers complained that the institution had become crowded with truants, committed for from three to six months only. The house of reformation was removed to Deer island in 1858, and in I860 a separate building for the girls, also on the island, was provided. In I889 the department for girls was closed, all wayward girls being sent thereafter to the State institution at Lancaster. In I895 the boys' department was removed from Deer island to Rainsford's island. It remained under the charge of the same city officials as the juvenile and adult paupers and offenders until 1897, when a separate department for children was established. The institution had always suffered seriously from its association, both territorially and in the public mind, with institutions for the care of adult paupers and prisoners. For many years the best public opinion of Boston has favored its removal from the island to a country location, but thus far a sufficient public sentiment to enable the city to make this desirable change has not been secured. PHILADELPHIA. The third juvenile reformatory in tihe United States was the Philadelphia house of refuge, the first meeting for the organization of which was held February 7, 1826. The institution was opened November 29, 1828. In its organization it followed quite closely the plan of the New York institution. The board DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN II9 of managers was a private corporation, and has so continued to the present, though, under the present law, of the twentyeight managers, two are appointed by the mayor and three by the court of common pleas of Philadelphia county. At the opening of the institution the fact was emphasized that it was not to be a prison, but " a work of charity and mercy; the refuge is not a place of punishment; it is not a provision simply, or even principally, for the security of society against the offences by the confinement of culprits, or for inflicting the vengeance of society upon offenders as a terror to those who may be inclined to do evil. In the accents of kindness and compassion it invites the children of poverty and ignorance, whose wandering and misguided steps are leading them to destruction, to come to a home where they will be sheltered and led into the ways of usefulness and virtue." After remaining at the original site for twenty years, the house of refuge was removed to Twenty-second and Poplar streets, which was then a rural district. From here the boys' department was removed in I892 to Glen Mills, Delaware county, Pa., to a farm of 4Io acres and to buildings erected on the cottage system. The girls' department remains at Twenty-second and Poplar streets, in the city. At present and for some years the cost of maintenance has been divided almost equally between the city of Philadelphia and the State. The fact that the institution is under the control of a private corporation, though doubtless of great advantage in many ways, is probably something of a drawback, as it is also in New York city, in securing needful appropriations for additional buildings. During the past year the legislature was asked for a special appropriation for an additional cottage for the boys, and at the same time the managers endeavored to raise by subscription funds for erecting another building in the girls' department. It is significant, however, that within the past year one of the managers has given to the institution a splendid gymnasium, drillroom, and swimming pool, prob 120 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS ably a more serviceable building for these purposes than would be provided by any State or municipal administration. Here, as in another institution referred to later, a separate cottage for the younger of the boys was provided during I898. A news sheet, the Glen Mills Daily, is issued every day except Sunday. The industrial schools of the Philadelphia institution have taken high rank during the past decade. Comparatively little use is made of the placing-out system; of 376 boys discharged ' during 1898, 30I were returned to friends; 39 were indentured; 24 were discharged by order of court; 7 were discharged " to find work; " 3 enlisted, and 2 died. A careful system of supervision is, however, maintained over the boys indentured, as also over those returned to their parents. The indenture system would not seem to be very satisfactory, from the fact that of the 36 indentured children who passed from the oversight of the visiting agent during the year, I5 were returned to the institution, II absconded, and only Io remained until the maturity of the indenture. Of the inmates discharged from the girls' department, the proportion of those indentured is larger, comprising about thirty per cent of the whole. In the removal to a country site, the separation of the boys' and girls' department, the development of industrial training for purposes of instruction, and in the relaxation of the former severity of discipline, this institution has taken an advanced position. MASSACHUSETTS. Although three juvenile reformatories were established between I824 and I828, it was almost twenty years before another institution was established. This was the Lyman school for boys, established by the State of Massachusetts, upon the suggestion of Hon. Theodore Lyman, ex-mayor of Boston, who gave to the State a considerable sum for this purpose. The institution was, however, from the first, strictly a State institution in its management, and was the first of this character in the United States, if not in the world. We are told that several DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 121 cities, Lowell, Worcester, Cambridge, and others, had established reform schools in connection with their almshouses, but these institutions were probably rather of the character of homes for destitute and neglected children than of juvenile reformatories. The institution was located at Westboro, where it still remains. In accordance with Mr. Lyman's suggestion the commitments to the schoof were during minority, and were limited, except in special cases approved by the trustees, to children under fourteen years of age; the upper age limit was, however, soon extended to sixteen, with an alternative sentence for a less period to the house of correction or other penal institution. Many inmates preferred a shorter sentence in a penal institution and attempted to secure such transfer by bad conduct in the reform school. In 1859 the alternative sentence was abolished; a school-ship or nautical branch was established, and the age for commitment limited to fourteen. Many of the children upon leaving the school were indentured to persons approved by the trustees, but they were not visited. When the State visiting agency was established in I869 it found great opportunity for improvement in the selection of families, and thenceforth a report from the visiting agent was required before a child was placed in a family from any State institution. In I879 the boards of trustees of the State charitable institutions were abolished, and the State reform school for boys, the State industrial school for girls, and the State primary school were placed under one board, the trustees of the State primary and reform schools. After the abolition of the schoolship in 1872, the reform school for boys suffered from a change in the law requiring it to receive boys up to seventeen years of age. This was repealed, however, when the Concord reformatory was established in 1884. The reform school for boys was thenceforth known as the Lyman school for boys. It was removed to a different site, without walls or enclosed yards, and with buildings on the cottage system; the age for commitment 122 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS was limited to fifteen years. A careful oversight is now maintained over children who have been indentured, and a few of the younger children are boarded in families, with the alternative of a return to the school if they misbehave. The Lyman school has carried the cottage system more nearly to its logical conclusion than most boys' reformatories; its cottages are smaller, more homelike, and more widely scattered; it emphasizes manual training in addition to trade teaching, and personal and moral influences rather than institutional methods; and individualizes the treatment of its inmates to a marked extent. It has justly earned the confidence of the people, and occupies a very high place among reform schools for boys in the United States. NEW YORK STATE. Two years after the establishment of the Lyman school the western house of refuge in New York, a purely State institution, located in Rochester, was opened. At first this was an institution for boys only, girls from all portions of the State still being sent to the institution in New York city. The first superintendent of the Rochester institution had for five years filled the corresponding position in the house of refuge in New York city. The Rochester institution was for many years not unlike most institutions of its class. During the past fifteen years, however, it has made very rapid advances in introducing modern methods of discipline, and more especially in the development of its industries and in the teaching of trades, in which direction it was a pioneer. Its site, owing to the growth of the city of Rochester, has become too valuable to be longer used for such purposes, and its buildings are of obsolete type. Under legislation of I899 a commission has selected a country site for the institution, and it is expected that it will be removed thither within a year or two. It would be very desirable if the girls' department of the State industrial school of Rochester and that of the house of refuge could both be discontinued and a separate institution for wayward girls be established. DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 123 CINCINNATI. One year after the establishment of the western house of refuge at Rochester the first juvenile reformatory west of the Alleghany mountains was established by the city of Cincinnati. This institution was established and is still conducted on the congregate system, and is one of the best of the reformatories on that system. It has laid special emphasis on its industrial department, and has not developed to any great extent its placing-out work. PENNSYLVANIA. In 1851 Pennsylvania, following the example set by New Yox two years earlier, established the house of refuge of western Pennsylvania, at Morganza. This was at first a voluntary association, but subsequently the counties in the western judicial district of Pennsylvania were authorized to subscribe not exceeding $Io,ooo each to the building fund of the institution; and each county so subscribing was authorized to appoint one manager for every $2,500 subscribed, such managers to be in addition to those selected by the voluntary association. The institution was at first located in the city of Allegheny, but in 1872 was authorized to remove to a country site, not more than fifty miles distant from Pittsburgh, and removed to Morganza, Washington county. In 1875 the statute was amended so that the power of appointing managers was vested solely in the governor, except as to such managers as were then appointed by the counties that had contributed to the building fund. The voluntary membership was abolished, and the institution became strictly a State institution. The cottage system was adopted by this institution when it removed from the, city of Allegheny to its country location in December, I876.,. The boys and girls are divided into eight families. The institution receives about one-third of its support from the State, and two-thirds from the counties from which its inmates are received. I24 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS OHIO. The reform school for boys opened at Lancaster, Ohio, in 1856, introduced the new type of institution variously known as the open, cottage, or family system. The object was to introduce more of the features of family life, to encourage selfcontrol by placing greater reliance upon the boys, and to separate them into grades, on the basis of character and conduct. This school was a pioneer in these directions, but its example was followed in many States, and has taken precedence over the earlier congregate plan. NEW JERSEY. The New Jersey reform school for boys was opened June 28, 1867, as a State institution. Its early reports speak in favor of many features which were not then generally regarded with favor, but which are now very generally accepted. Its first report states that " the system which it is proposed to adopt is to have families of boys in separate houses, each family to be under the care of a suitable man and his wife. The advantages of the plan are briefly that such division awakens more of the interest and affections of home in the minds of the boys and places them permanently under the notice and supervision of the parents of the house, who, devoting themselves to their own pupils, acquire a more perfect acquaintance with and influence over them than could be the case were they in congregate establishments like the refuges of metropolitan cities." The same report describes a "system of grading which puts the character of each boy in his own hands." It states also that although the open farm system offers almost unlimited freedom, there had been but one attempt to escape, and that was unsuccessful. It is to be noted that the managers of this institution, before adopting its plans for building and management, conferred especially with the authorities of the Ohio reform school, and that the first superintendent had an intimate acquaintance with DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 125 the working of the State reform school at Westboro, Mass. Subsequent reports speak in high terms of the success of the open-farm system and the system of grades or credits and demerits. The placing-out system is also spoken of as in considerable use, with excellent results, in the report of I869. LIST OF JUVENILE REFORMATORIES. The rapid multiplication of juvenile reformatories after 1850 precludes further mention of individual institutions; it will be noted, however, that a much larger proportion of institutions for wayward children are public, i. e., under State or municipal control, than of institutions for destitute children. The majority are strictly State institutions, though there are a few municipal institutions of this nature, nearly all of which were established prior to I875. Even in States in which the contract or subsidy system prevails for the care of destitute children, the juvenile reformatories are usually under public control. There are a few reformatories under private control and supported by private funds, such as the Burnham industrial school, located at Canaan Four Corners, N. Y., and others. There are also numerous convents under the charge of religious sisterhoods, for the reformation of young women, some of which also receive girls. A list of juvenile reformatory institutions in the United States, given in the United States census of I890, with such revision as has been possible, is as follows: 1824. House of refuge, New York city. 1826. House of reformation, Boston. 1828. House of refuge, Philadelphia. 1847. Lyman school for boys, Westboro, Mass. I849. State industrial school, Rochester. I850. House of refuge, Cincinnati. I85I. Reform school, Morganza, Pa. 1853. State reform school, Portland, Me. I854. State reform school for boys, West Meriden, Ct 1854. House of refuge, St. Louis. 1856. State reform school, Lansing, Mich. 1856. Boys' industrial school (formerly called the "reform farm ), Lan caster, Ohio. i858. State industrial school, Manchester, N. H. I26 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS I858. State industrial school for girls, Lancaster, Mass. 1864. State reform school, Jamesburgh, N. J. I864. The house of good shepherd, Baltimore. I865. Industrial school of reform, Louisville. I866. Reform school for boys, Plainfield, Ind. I866. Reform school, Vergennes, Vt. I867. Industrial school, Eldora, Iowa. 1867. Female house of refuge, Baltimore. I868. St. Mary's industrial school for boys, Carroll, Md. I869. Reform school, Washington. I869. Girls' industrial school, Delaware, Ohio. 1870. Industrial school for girls, Middletown, Ct. I870. House of reformation for colored boys, Cheltenham, Md. I870. Plummer farm school, Salem, Mass. I87I. State industrial school for girls, Trenton. 1871. Reform school for girls and women's prison, Indianapolis. I873. Newark city home, Verona, N. J. I874. Industrial school for girls, Hallowell, Me. I875. Industrial school for girls, Milwaukee. 1878. State industrial school for girls, Adrian, Mich. I878. State reform school, Red Wing, Minn. I88o. State industrial school, Golden, Colo. I88o. State reform school, Topeka. I88o. State industrial school, Kearney, Neb. 1882. State industrial school for boys, Waukesha, Wis. I882. Oaklawn school for girls, Howard, R.'I. I882. Industrial school for colored girls, Melvale, Md. 1883. Sockannosset school for boys, Howard, R. L I885. Ferris industrial school, Wilmington,. Del. I888. Reform school for boys, Boonville, Mo. I888. State industrial school for girls, Chillicothe, Mo. I888. State industrial school for girls, Beloit, Kas. I890. State reform school, Pontiac, Ill. I89o. Girls' industrial school, Geneva, Neb. I892. State home for juvenile offenders, Genreva, Ill. 1892. The house of the good shepherd for colored girls, Baltimore. I893. Reform school for girls, Washington. I894. Delaware industrial school for girls, Witmington, Del. I897. Virginia manual labor school, Hanover, Va. I9oo. State reformatory for boys (white and colored) Marianna, Fla. I900. State reformatory for girls (white and colored), Marianna, Fla. TENDENCIES IN REFORMATORY WORK. Several general tendencies in juvenile reformatory work are obvious. It is interesting to notice the various names by which reformatory institutions have been known at different periods. At first they were houses of refuge. Then' it was sought to emphasize the object of the institution by calling them reform DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 127 schools. In course of time this name came to have its disadvantages. To have come from a reform school was not a good recommendation; in fact, it was a distinct handicap to the discharged pupils. To escape from this, and also to emphasize the industrial features, the name industrial school was taken up. As this came to be more and more generally used, it came to have some of the disadvantages of " reform school," and it also had an unfortunate effect upon industrial schools that were not reformatory in purpose. Probably the best solution is that of giving the school the name of some person or place. This neither creates a false impression, nor makes prominent the reformatory feature. The Michigan institution has been named by statute successively, "house of correction," "State reform school," and " industrial school for boys." The importance of employment as a means of preventing deterioration, and as a positive reformatory agency, was early recognized. At first the industries were extremely simple. In some cases the labor of the inmates was farmed out to contractors by the hour, or by the piece. This gradually gave way to manufacturing industries carried on in the institution, under the direction of its own officers, and for the production of articles for consumption in the institution, or for the market. This in turn, in the best institutions, has been replaced by the introduction of industries for the purposes of instruction rather than of revenue. Those industries which are most useful in producing revenue are apt to be less useful in fitting a boy for outside life. Some, notably chair-caning and brush-making, came to be known in the industrial world as " institution " industries. For this reason, among others, in his report in the national conference of charities and correction of I890, Mr. T. J. Charlton said of chair-caning -" I must confess that I dislike this industry more than any other that has been mentioned in this report." There is also an excellent paper on the same subject by the same writer in the conference proceedings of I897. The best reformatories are industrial schools in fact as well as in name. 128 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS In the construction of buildings, the cottage plan is clearly preferred. Though congregate institutions still are built, they find no defenders, except on grounds of economy. Discipline has more and more relaxed in severity. Bolts, bars, and high walls are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. In 1898, of forty-three reformatories reported upon at the national conference of charities and correction, thirteen were classed as "walled" and thirty as "open" institutions. Though the terms were not very clearly defined, these figures undoubtedly fairly represent the preponderant sentiment in favor of the open system. More and more the problem is seen to be primarily one of education, not of repression, or even of reformation, as that term is ordinarily used. The evil tendencies are to be attacked indirectly by the introduction of new interests, new ambitions, and new powers. IX -PRESENT TENDENCIES. The experience of the century and the increasing study given to child-saving work during the past twenty-five years, might naturally be expected to result in more or less clearly defined tendencies toward the wider adoption of some methods, and the modification or rejection of others. Through the free competition which has prevailed, or, if the phrase sounds harsh as applied to charities, through the unrestricted opportunity for each system to demonstrate its inherent tendencies and to secure its natural and logical results, certain methods should by this time have shown their fitness to survive. Are we able at the close of the century to see any evidence pointing toward the general adoption of certain methods? As to governmental agencies the facts are evident. As between State, versus county, city and town systems, the State plan is far in the lead. No new States are establishing a series of local or county homes for children. It is doubtful whether any one of the three States that have county children's homes would choose this plan if they were now for the first establish@ *. DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN I29 ing their system. The increasing effectiveness of State supervision over the county homes, approximating in some cases actual control, suggests the probability of State management in the not distant future. State management would certainly be followed, sooner or later, by a sharp reduction in the num-/ ber of the institutions. The real contest, if such it may be called, will be between the State and the contract or subsidy systems. To put it plainly, the question now being decided is this -is our public administration sufficiently honest and efficient to be entrusted with the management of a system for the care of destitute children, or must we turn that branch of public service over to private charitable corporations, leaving to public officials the functions of paying the bills, and of exercising such supervision. over the workings of the plan as may be possible? Each of these plans finds new advocates and wider adoption yearly. Strongly contrasted in spirit and method, and, in any one State, almost mutually exclusive, it seems certain that one plan or the other will, by a process of gradual selection, gain the ascendancy, and become distinctively, though probably not exclusively, the American system of public care of destitute and neglected children. Which it shall be, only the twentieth century can tell. Each plan has powerful advocates, and each has behind it some of the most powerful forces in American social and political life. There are some indications that the State system will prevail. No State that has adopted it has abandoned it; nor in any State in which a State system has been actually established has there been any movement in favor of its abandonment or serious modification. On the other hand, the contract or subsidy system seems to be everywhere in a state of unstable equilibrium. Opposed as it undoubtedly is to the natural instincts of great bodies of American people, and containing in 9 130 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS itself tendencies to an undue growth, which inevitably alarm many who are not opposed to it from principle, it everywhere arouses from time to time efforts for its better regulation, which, if they fail, one after another, lead to a demand, which in more than one case has prevailed, for its abolition. There is little reason for thinking that the subsidy plan will ever be wholly discontinued in all the States, but for the reasons above stated it seems likely that it will not make much further progress, and that it may be discontinued in some localities in which it is at present strongly rooted. As to the form which the State systems are likely to take, there undoubtedly is a growing tendency to create a strong central State unsalaried board of several members, having to deal only with children's work; to vest in this body the custody of all destitute and neglected children in the State who are public charges; and to leave the board free in a large measure to work out the best system for caring for the children, through temporary institutions, boarding-out, and placing-out. After all, the difference between the Massachusetts State system and the Michigan plan is simply that, for the temporary care of children, the latter uses an institution, while the former uses boarding-out. In both plans, the placing of children in free permanent homes is the chief feature. Already there are evidences that the Michigan, Minnesota, and other similar institutions are finding a limitation of their plan, evidenced by the gradual accumulation of children who are not available for placing in free homes, such as crippled, unattractive, slightly diseased, and other cases. These must either accumulate in the institution, as seems to be the case in Minnesota, or be returned to counties and refused admission to the State school, as is the case in Michigan, where already there is a movement to either compel the State school to receive such cases, or to create a new State institution for them. Many of these children could be placed in families at board, though not, for some time at DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 13I least, in free homes. For this reason, and also because as communities grow older the opportunities for placing children, who are too old for legal adoption, seems to grow less, it is likely that the State systems will gradually find it desirable, if not necessary, to place certain of their children in families with payment for board. Whether the State schools for dependent children will follow the example of the State of Massachusetts and the city of Boston, in doing away with the temporary institution altogether, is doubtful. Several tendencies in the management of private charities for children are evident. The older orphan asylums are in some cases still conducted on nearly the same lines as when first organized, but among the newer institutions there is almost a general acceptance of the fact that orphans and children upon whom there is no valid parental claim are much' better off if adopted by families, and that to rear them in asylums until they are twelve, fourteen or sixteen years of age is an expensive, wholly unnecessary and seriously harmful blunder. This sentiment found expression in the unanimous report of the' Committee on the Care of Destitute and Neglected Children, to the National Conference of Charities and Correction of I899. The very general sentiment in favor of placing nearly all classes of 'dependent children in free homes in families is likely to lead to a more general adoption of the boarding-out plan by private charities, as the limitations of the plan of placing-out without payment for board are more clearly perceived, and as such limitations become more pronounced as communities grow older. In the institutional care of all classes of children, the cottage plan has clearly proven its superiority to the congregate system. Those who continue to erect congregate dormitories must be ready to apologize for them to the enlightened sentiment of the community. I32 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS The general movement in favor of industrial education, leads naturally to a pronounced tendency to provide trade teaching in institutions, for such of the older children as, for good or insufficient reasons, are retained. It is now seen, however, that this training is simply that which should be within the reach of all children, and that it can be offered to children living at home, or with other families, as easily as to those living in institutions. We are not likely to have any more institutions, founded for the express purpose of teaching trades, which make residence in the institution and support from its funds a necessary condition of receiving such instruction. Philanthropists who wish to further the cause of industrial education are more likely to follow the example of Pratt, Drexel, Armour, and Auchmuty, than that of Girard and Williamson. Such children as must be kept in institutions will be given every practicable opportunity for industrial training, but children will not be gathered into institutions for the purpose of giving them such training. As to the division of the field between public agencies and private charities, little change is noticeable, except an increasing tendency to regard the public authorities as the appropriate agencies to assume the care of children who are to be permanently separated from their families, and private charities as more particularly fitted to deal with those cases involving temporary assistance, or the care of children for whom some payment is made by a surviving parent. Associated charity, individual effort, and private funds have never done more for destitute children than at present. There need be no fear that they will be rendered unnecessary by the development of a State system. Nor, unfortunately, does there seem to be any reason for thinking that charities for caring for destitute, neglected, and delinquent children will soon become unnecessary. We learn to deal more and more wisely with those who are in distress, DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 133 but the forces which produce poverty, neglect, and crime seem to be beyond our reach. The poor, the neglectful, and the vicious we shall have with us for a long time to come, and the hearts of the generous will continue to respond, both through individual and associate charity, and through governmental action. There is ground for rational optimism, however, in the fact that, more and more, thought is added to kindliness, and that as surely as experience and study bring fresh truths to light, so surely does the intelligent sentiment of the community, sooner or later, compel their adoption. X - BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE CARE OF DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN. (This bibliography is far from complete, but is intended to indicate the more important sources of information.) Aldermen. Assistant Aldermen. Common Council. New York City; Proceedings I800-I873. City Library, City Hall, N. Y. Berkowitz, Henry, Rabbi. Nobody's Children. Discourse before congregation, Rodef Shalom, 10 pp. The pulpit message for March o1, I893. Philadelphia, Benj. Nusbaum, publisher, 830 N. 6th St. Brace, Charles Loring. The Best Methods of Founding Children's Charities in Towns and Villages, I I pp. Paper presented at National Conference of Charities at Cleveland, Ohio, I880. The Dangerous Classes of New York and Twenty Years' Work Among Them, 448 pp., Wynkoop & Hallenbeck, publishers, N. Y., I872. Methods and Aims of a Charity for the Children of the Poor. Address to the theological students. Harvard University, May, 1881, 27 pp. Brace, Chas. Loring, Jr. Country Homes for Dependent Children, N. Y., 1898. A Review of the placing-out Work of the Children's Aid Society of New York, 28 pp. I34 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS Briggs, Franklin H. Boys as They are Made and How to Remake Them. Rochester, N. Y., I894. Burt, Frederick A. Baby-Farming. Report to the Conference of Child-Helping Societies, Boston, November 28, 1892, I8 pp. Published in Lend-a-Hand for January, I893. Cammann, Henry J., and Camp, Hugh N. The Charities of New York, Brooklyn, and Staten Island, N. Y. Published by Hurd & Houghton, 459 Broome Street, I868. Care of Dependent Children. Circular issued by the Board of State Charities, Columbus, Ohio, I892. Care of Destitute Children in New York City. Publication No. 72, State Charities Aid Association, May, I899. Carlisle, Robert J., M. D. An Account of Bellevue Hospital, I736-I893. Published by Society of the Alumni of Bellevue Hospital, New York, I893. (Contains an account of the early history of the New York almshouse.) Census U. S., IIth, I890. Volume on Crime, Pauperism and Benevolence, part II, pp. 894-936. Charities Review (contains many valuable papers on child-saving work). See index of vols. I-IX in February, I900. Cobb, Mrs. Mary E. The Responsibility of States to Their Dependent Children, 29 pp. J. H. Franklin & Co., printers, Fall River, Mass., I888. Conference on the Care of Dependent and Delinquent Children in the State of New York, Proceedings of. Publication No. 59 of the State Charities Aid Association, 1893. Cox, Mary McHenry. Advantages of Institutions in the Education of Destitute Children, I2 pp. Philadelphia, February 15, 1887. Cummings, John. Poor Laws of Massachusetts and New York. Publications of American Economic Association, vol. Io, No. 4. McMillan & Co., New York, July, 1895. Dependent Children in the City and State of New York. Reprints from twenty-third and twenty-fifth annual reports DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 135 of the State Charities Aid Association, New York, I895, I897. Directories of Charities. New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Buffalo. Ferris, John C. Homes for the Homeless, or Fourteen Years Among the Orphans, 304 pp. Publishing house of the M. E. Church South, Barber & Smith, agents, Nashville, Tenn., I895. Field, David Dudley. The Child and the State. The Forum, April, I886, 8 pp. Folks, Homer. Annual Reports of Child-Caring Organizations. Lend-a-Hand, October, I893, 8 pp. Child-Saving VWork in Pennsylvania, I8 pp. Press of Geo. H. Ellis, Boston, I893. Family Life for Dependent and Wayward Children. Reprinted from Proceedings of International Congress of Charities, Correction and Philanthropy, Chicago, I893. The Removal of Children from Almshouses, 15 pp. Lend-a-Hand, September, 1894. J. Stillman Smith & Co., Boston. The Care of Dependent Children, from the Standpoint of a Director of the) Poor. Proceedings of Convention of Directors of the Poor of Pennsylvania, I892. State Supervision of Child-Caring Agencies. Proceedings N. C. C., I895. Reprinted in Report of N. Y. State Board of Charities,I895. What Should Be the Relation between a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and Child-Caring Agencies. Read before International Humane CongressI 1893. Reprinted in Altruist Interchange, New York, January, 1897. Some Developments of the Boarding-out System. Charities Review, March, I893. Care of Dependent Children. Address before Annual Meeting of Baltimore C. O. S. Report Baltimore C. O. S., I894. Why Should Dependent Children Be Reared in Families rather than in Institutions? Proceedings, Superintendents of the Poor of New York I36 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS Convention, 1895. P. 19. Public Aid to Private Charities. A Rejoinder to Rev. T. L. Kinkeads' letter. Charities, New York, October 7, I899. Hale, Geo. S. Memorial History of Boston, 1881, chap. XIII. The Charities of Boston, etc. Report of Commission on the Treatment of the Poor (Geo. S. Hale, Chairman), Boston. Rockwell & Churchill, 1878. The Proposed State Children's Bureau, Why it Should be Established, 58 pp. Geo. H. Ellis, printer, Boston, I895. Hart, H. H. Immigration of Children by New York Children's Aid Society. Report to State Board of Charities, 27 pp. State Printer, Minneapolis, 1884. Hill, Florence Davenport. Children of the State. Deals with all countries; chapter VII treats of United States experience. The McMillan Co., I889. J History and Reminiscences of the Philadelphia Almshouse and the Philadelphia Hospital. Reprinted from Philadelphia Reports. Delve & Blackburn, Philadelphia, I890. History of Child-Saving in the United States, being the report of the Committee on the History of Child-Saving Work to the Twentieth National Conference of Charities and Correction. Geo. H. Ellis, Boston, 1893. (The best single source of information.) International Congress of Charities, Correction and Philanthropy. Proceedings of Section on the Care of Dependent, Neglected and Wayward Children, Chicago, I893. Published by Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, Md. Jones, Rev. Jenkin Lloyd. "Not Institutions but Homes," 38 pp. Sermon, published by All Souls Church, Chicago, I893. Leonard, Clara T. The Best Way to deal with Children taken from homes of vice or neglect: life in a family vs. large institutions. Substance of an address made before Associated Charities of Boston, at a general conference, February DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 137 I4, I88I, 15 pp. Tolman & White, printers, Boston, I88I. Destitute and Delinquent Children, 9 pp. Sunday Afternoon Magazine, December, 1878. Published in Springfield, Mass. Letchworth, Wm. P. Children of the State. Address made at the Thirteenth National Conference of Charities and Correction, St. Paul, Minn., 1880, 58 pp. Children in lAlmshouses. Extract from an address before State Convention of Superintendents of the Poor, 2 pp. Rochester, June, I874. Classification of Children needing care, training or reformation. An argument against Assembly bill in relation to Western House of Refuge. April, I882. Homes for Homeless Children. Extract from the Ninth Annual Report of the State Board of Charities of the State of New York, relating to orphan asylums and other institutions for the care of children, 508 pp. Weed, Parsons & Co., printers, Albany, N. Y., 1876. Girls' Reformatories. Reasons for establishing a separate girls' reformatory instead of rebuilding on the old site of the edifice recently destroyed by fire, at the State Industrial School, Rochester, N. Y. Embodied in a letter addressed to the Hon. Jas. W. Husted, Speaker of the Assembly, April 7, I887, 51 pp. Matthews, Northrup & Co., printers, Buffalo, N. Y. Innocent and Incorrigible Children; classification and training of, 19 pp. Paper read at Tenth National Conference of Charities and Correction, at Louisville, 1883, Argus Co., printers, Albany, N. Y., I884. Juvenile Offenders: industrial training of children in houses of refuge and other reformatory schools, 44 pp. Argus Co., printers, Albany, N. Y., I883. Lord, Henry W. \Dependent and Delinquent Children (with special reference to girls). How they are, and how they ought to be, cared for, 8 pp. Paper read at meeting of County Superintendents of Poor, Grand Rapids, Mich. I38 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS Lowell, Mrs. Josephine Shaw. Dependent Children supported by city of New York, and proposed draft of bill to create a department for their care. Lend-a-Hand, March, I886. Report on the Institutions for the Care of Destitute Children of the city of New York, 79 pp. From Nineteenth Annual Report of State Board of Charities, I886. Report upon the Care of Dependent Children in the city of New York and elsewhere, 17 pp. From Twenty-third Annual Report State Board of Charities, I890. Mease, James, M. D. The Picture of Philadelphia. Phila., 8 I, pp. 292-296. National Conference of Charities and Correction, Proceedings I873-I900 (contains many valuable papers, not mentioned in this bibliography; volume for 1893 contains index of preceding numbers). Geo. H. Ellis, publisher, Boston, Mass. Pauper Children in Poorhouses and Almshouses in the State of New York. Extracts from Proceedings of Boards of County Supervisors, etc., 1861-1874, 20 pp. S. C. A. A. Library. Peirce, B. K., D. D. A Half Century with Juvenile Delin/ quents, or the New York House of Refuge and its times. Appleton & Co., New York, I869. Pemberton, Caroline. Your Little Brother James. Geo. W. Jacobs & Co., Philadelphia, I896. Placing-out of Children. Report of the Committee of State Board of Charities of the State of New York, I898. Public Appropriations to Private Charities in New York city. Publication No. 73, State Charities Aid Association, July, I899. Putnam, Elizabeth C. On the Duties of Guardians of Children, 7 pp. Boston, September, I879. Report of the Committee appointed at a town meeting of the citizens of the City and County of Philadelphia, on July 23, 1827, to consider the subject of the pauper system of the city, etc., Philadelphia, 1827. DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 139 Report of the Commission on the Number and Condition of Dependent and Neglected Children in the State (of Connecticut) to the General Assembly, January, 1883, 16 pp. Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, printers, Hartford, Ct. Report of Special Committee of Board of Managers of Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents on establishing a system of visitation. New York, April, I894. Richmond, Rev. J. F. New York and its institutions, I604 -ii872, 608 pp. E. B. Treat, New York, I872. Ring, Thomas F. Catholic Child-Helping Agencies in the United States. The motive, the methods, and the results, 22 pp. Twenty-third National Conference of Charities and Correction, Grand Rapids, Mich., I896. Riis, Jacob A. Children of the Poor, I892. How the other Half lives, I890. (Deal chiefly with conditions in New York city.) Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. Scherf & Westcott's History of Philadelphia. (Second volume has chapter on Philadelphia Charities.) Schindler, Rabbi Solomon. Thoughts in an Orphan Asylum, 15 pp. Arena, November, I893. Arena Publishing Co., Boston. Statements relating to reformatory, charitable and industrial schools for the Young, 208 pp. Circulars of Information of the Bureau of Education. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1875. State Boards of Charities, Annual Reports of, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Ohio and other States. State Conferences of Charities, Proceedings of, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania and other States. Warner, Amos G. American Charities. Chapter IX: Dependent Children. Thomas Y. Crowell, New York, I894. Wilkins, Mary E. The Bound Girl; Deacon Thomas Wale's Will; and the Adopted Daughter, Chapters in The Pot of Gold. D. Lothrop Co., Boston, I893. I40 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS,Williams,.Talcott, LL. D. The Legal Status of Children Indentured and the present method of caring for destitute children, and the work of the Aid Societies, Philadelphia, 1895. Reprinted from the Report of the Twenty-first Annual Session of the Association of Directors of the Poor and Charities of the State of Pennsylvania, held at Philadelphia, October, 1895. Myers & Shinkle Co., Pittsburg, Pa., I896. Wilson, Anna T. Some Arguments for the Boarding-out of Dependent Children in the State of New York. State Charities Record. Published by State Charities Aid Association, 1893. Wines, E. C., D. D. LL. D. The State of Prisons and of ChildSaving Institutions in the Civilized World, 719 pp. University Press, Cambridge, I880. Yates, J. V. N., Report on Relief and Settlement of the Poor, New York, 1824. Reprinted by State Board of Charities, 1900. REPORTS OF INSTITUTIONS AND SOCIETIES. Colorado: Colorado State Home for Dependent and Neglected Children, 1896-1900, Denver, Col. District of Columbia: Superintendent of Charities. Washington, D. C., i891 -I900. Georgia: Union Society, Bethesda, Ga. Fourteenth Anniversary, April 25, 1899. Union Society Minutes, I750-I858, with Historical Sketch of Bethesda Orphan Asylum. John M. Cooper & Co., Savannah, Ga., I860., Iowa: Soldiers Orphans' Home and Home for Indigent Children, I865-I900, Davenport, Iowa. (Sixteenth Biennial Report, fully illustrated.) DESTITUTE, NEGLECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN 141 Kansas: Soldiers Orphans' Home, Atchison, Kan., I886-I900. Maryland: The Baltimore Orphan Asylum. Acts of Incorporation, By-laws, etc., I891. Massachusetts: Boston Asylum and Farm School for Indigent Boys, I896. Boston Female Asylum. Historical Account, etc., I898. Children's Aid Society of Boston, I865-I900. Children's Institutions, Department of Boston, I897-I900. State Board of Lunacy and Charity of Massachusetts. The State Primary School of Massachusetts (Closing Report), October, I895. Michigan: Michigan State Public School, Coldwater, Mich., I873 -I900. Minnesota: State Public School of Minnesota, Owatonna, I884-I900. See especially Seventh Biennial Report. Montana: State Orphans' Home, Twin Bridges, Montana, I893-I900. Nevada: State Orphans' Home, Carson City, Nev., I864-I900. New Jersey: New Jersey Commission on Defective, Delinquent and Dependent Children, and their care, report of, 35 pp. MacCrellish & Quigley, State Printers, Trenton, N. J., I898. New Jersey State Board of Children's Guardians, report for the year I899, 60 pp. MacCrellish & Quigley, State Printers, Trenton, N. J., I899. New York: Catholic Protectory, annual reports, I863-I900. Children's Aid Society of New York, I853-I900. New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, I875-I900. 142 AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS The Orphan Asylum Society in New York City, origin and history. A reprint of annual reports of this institution from I806 to I896, 2 vols. State Charities Aid Association, I873-I900, especially I893-I900. Agency for Providing Situations for Destitute Mothers with Infants, annual reports published by State Charities Aid Association, New York, I894-I900. Orphan Asylums, annual reports of. See list on pp. 34-36. Pennsylvania: Children's Aid Society of Philadelphia, I881-1900. Board of City Trusts, including annual reports of Girard College, Philadelphia, I870-I900. Rhode Island: State Home and School for Dependent Children, Providence, R. I., I886-1900. South Carolina: Charleston Orphan House, Charleston, S. C., centennial proceedings, I890. Texas: State Orphan Asylum, Corsicana, Tex., I887-1900. Wisconsin: State Public School of Wisconsin, I886-I900. UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 3 9015 01333 7855 4. DO NOT REMIOVE OR MUTILATE CARD M~! II